


When the Stranger Came to Town

by omnimoot



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bloodstone Circle, Cannibalism, Cecil Has A Third Eye, Cecil Has Tentacles, Cecil and Kevin are brothers, Cecil is Inhuman, Cecil is a god, Consentacles, Decapitation, Deja Vu, Disembowelment, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, Eye Gouging, Eye Trauma, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Misgendering, Multi, Possessed Cecil, Self-Mutilation, Substance Abuse, Tattooed Cecil, The University of What It Is, The Voice of Night Vale, The Void, Trans Carlos, because Carlos is surprisingly kinky and tentacles are Cool, chapters go dramatically from innocent fluff to pure smut to extreme ultraviolence, everything keeps happening again and again
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-20 19:33:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 69
Words: 202,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3662355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omnimoot/pseuds/omnimoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Cecil is the newcomer in town, instead of Carlos. Heads turn as the newest stranger in town doesn't seem quite human, but nobody suspects much more than some strange mutation until things start to get, well... weird. It hardly seems like a coincidence when, only a short while after the arrival of the stranger, life gets a lot less normal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Encounter

The news in town was that a stranger had come around. Now, that wasn’t entirely unusual. People came and went sometimes, or people passed through. Generally it was met with little remark, once or twice Carlos had heard remarks about some of the women who’d come through, and he thought they were rather in poor taste. It was nobody’s business how a stranger chose to dress, it really wasn’t their business how anybody chose to dress.

When that new stranger came around, it suddenly became everybody’s business. Carlos couldn’t help overhearing, from his students, from his fellow professors, from people on the streets. Before he had ever even seen the stranger, he couldn’t help but form a mental image:

Strange, clashing fashion. Furry pants, raincoats on a sunny day, he’d arrived on the first day wearing a full business suit and slippers.

He wore glasses. This was probably the most normal observation anyone could make about him. Big, square glasses with rims only on the top.

His hair was purple. Carlos stopped himself from asking how old he was supposed to be; he refused to participate in this unscientific spreading of rumors. Still, he couldn’t expect much older than the college students he taught; he rarely saw anyone much older who dyed their hair bright colors.

He was covered in tattoos. When he wore anything that revealed enough of his arms to see, he may have been some kind of ink junkie. All of the tattoos were black, and there was disagreement on what they were tattoos of. Some reports called them abstract, tribal swirls. Others considered them tentacles. Someone had argued that they were both at different times.

All of this, of course, paled in comparison to the real reason he couldn’t just blend is as some eccentric tourist: the stranger possessed, dead center above the two he was supposed to possess, a third eye. Once or twice, he had reportedly worn some kind of headband over it, but this seemed to be a stylistic choice rather than any actual fear of exposing it.

Nobody could agree on the color of this extra eye, which seemed to Carlos a really simple thing to have so much disagreement on it.

It was plain as day, the first time he saw the stranger himself, his third eye was… purple? Maybe? Sort of a milky black? He squinted through his glasses and stared over at the stranger from the other end of the grocery aisle, completely forgetting any rule he’d ever learned that it was impolite to stare. Everyone stared.

The stranger, looking much smaller in person than Carlos had been led to believe from the reports, was staring at a shelf full of loaves of bread, deep concern etched into his features for some indiscernible reason. Carlos watched fearlessly, certain that the man’s staring match with the bread would keep him thoroughly distracted.

This was not the case for very long. Probably feeling Carlos’ stare on him, the stranger looked over and opened his mouth to speak.

Not a word came out.

Slack-jawed, now he was the one staring at Carlos. Made suddenly self-conscious, Carlos checked himself over. No, his fly was zipped. His casual lab coat was in neat and tidy order. He had no stains, nothing on him worthy of staring. Finally, he concluded that the man was staring at his face.

“Is there something in my teeth?”

The stranger stumbled over a response, as if he could scarcely speak the language; Carlos sympathized. He’d had trouble picking up on English when he was younger. He was almost ready to ask the stranger if he spoke Spanish instead, when his words finally formed a coherent enough reply.

“No. Your teeth are beautiful—fine. Your teeth are fine.”

Carlos’ brows furrowed at the statement. The stranger spoke with an accent he’d never heard before, but he spoke without hitches, fluently even if his pronunciation was a little off. He’d mixed up a pretty simple word, for being fluent.

Before he could ask where the stranger was from—a question, he was ensured, a number of people had tried asking before with no results—somebody dropped a jar the next aisle over and the stranger excused himself. Important reporter duties, he insisted, as he left not toward the aisle that the accident had occurred in, but quickly extricated himself from the store entirely, leaving his cart behind with a khaki green messenger bag still sitting in the top basket.

“Wait, you left—” Carlos began, but too late to be heard.

Morally, it was probably not a good idea to take somebody’s bag when they left it behind. No IRB in the world would allow the rifling through of somebody else’s belongings, even for scientific gain. Carlos knew this as well as he knew the rules of science, and he knew those better than anything. He was a scientist.

He also knew, however, that if he wanted to return the bag, he would need to know where the stranger lived. He would need enough information to get the bag back to him.

Carlos set his grocery basket on the floor and crept over to the empty cart, and in that moment he felt as much like a spy as a scientist. He unzipped the bag slowly, keeping his face away from it in case something jumped out, and he knew it was unscientific to expect that. He was forming opinions based on hearsay and not on factual information.

Nothing jumped out of the man’s bag, but it was certainly full of an odd hodge-podge of things that Carlos incidentally and completely unintentionally noticed while he was digging for a wallet. These things included, and he listed these mentally: a small silk pouch of stones, a bottle of fresh breath spray, a beat up journal labelled “The Little Reporter’s Book of Big Boy Note Taking”, and more than just one flask emblazoned with a collection of logos he couldn’t recognize.

He was about to open the journal, for purposes of checking if there was an address on the inside cover of course, when he realized that a young woman had walked into the aisle and noticed him. Carlos quickly stuffed the journal back in the stranger’s bag and picked the whole thing up, as nonchalantly as he could, to sling over his shoulder.

In the name of science, and not getting caught walking away with somebody else’s bag, he was going to have to grocery shop later. His own basket sat on the floor, abandoned, next to the stranger’s empty shopping cart.

Retreating into the streets, it was a warm day, but not blistering hot out. It was cool enough to wear a lab coat if one was devoted enough to science, and he was devoted enough not only to wear the lab coat, but to conduct potentially illegal scientific research by stealing people's bags. Well, more of picking them up when they were left behind.

Having wasted so much time with an unfruitful grocery shopping trip, it was time to head all the way back to campus, his beloved University of What It Is. He would have an hour or two before his evening class, he could continue his investigation away from the prying eyes of onlookers. Carlos didn’t own a car, but he’d never felt need of one; today he wished he had one if only to hide the bag.

Nobody noticed, but he felt very conspicuous with the stranger’s bag against his hip.

Carlos hurried back to his office to read in peace, and determined almost instantly that the stranger was an author of some sort. His journal read like a very rough drafted story; a lot of the logic didn’t seem to make sense, and the amount of bizarre non-sequiturs that littered every page made it difficult enough to read that he abandoned the pursuit fairly early on.

It wasn’t a factual journal, so there was no further scientific purpose to reading it all the way through. He’d determined the stranger’s occupation, and that was more than anyone else.

His name was also Cecil. Cecil Palmer. And nobody else had that information, either.


	2. The Phone Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos thinks that he'll just wait until after class to return the stranger's belongings to him, but that's just not what ends up happening at all. At least, he can tell himself he's going to be getting a lot of science done at the rate things are going.

 It was getting later into the evening, and Carlos was giving a lecture that nobody seemed as enthusiastic about as he was. A room full of students, they should have been staring in rapt attention as he explained to them the scientific method. Half of them were dozing with their heads propped on their hands, one was passed out on her desk, a couple in the back were texting.

What was he expecting when he agree to teach an intro level chemistry class? They hadn't even gotten to the actual chemistry part yet, it was early in the fall and he was still trying to get them to pay enough attention to his explanations of science in general.

This was not the proper environment for spreading his love of science. Nobody was paying attention, they were bored, they had a million better places to be.

The whole class woke back up rather quickly, however, when the stranger's phone went off on their professor's desk. Carlos had determined to take the bag back to its owner after class, but hadn't arrived at that point yet.

Now, even tucked away into the front pocket of his bag, Cecil's phone was ringing quite audibly. And the ringtone was no simple preset, but seemed rather like the owner had tried his hardest to find the bounciest, most upbeat pop song ever, and then slowed it down until it sounded like a horror movie soundtrack. Actually, he wasn't sure _what_ he was listening to.

Just that everyone in the room was finally listening as well.

“What's with your ringtone, man?” a young man in the front row asked. Nobody else was saying anything, just staring and waiting to see if he was going to pick it up in front of them.

Carlos set his laser pointer on the podium and cast his eyes toward his desk. “It isn't my phone, heh. It's. A student left their things from the previous hour, one of their friends must be calling.” The lie spilled out of his mouth easily; he couldn't tell anyone whose bag he'd somehow ended up with.

Somebody suggested for him to pick up the phone. This quickly became a chant; it was still going off. Whoever was on the other line wasn't giving up, and it wasn't going to voicemail either.

“That—that really isn't my business,” he argued. “You don't just pick up other people's phones.”

“Maybe _you_ don't. But I'd pick it up,” the first student retorted.

Before Carlos had the chance to respond again, the phone had finally gone quiet. He shrugged and picked his laser pointer up once again. “No problem now.”

To all the students who had nearly witnessed something interesting, it was a heartbreaking moment when the phone stopped ringing. Carlos picked up where he'd left off, undeterred in his quest to teach his students about science.

“Now, if you want any kind of real, scientific results, you've got to do more trials, the first time never supports anything,” he explained. “You don't know if you just got those results because you're lucky, or unlucky, or messed up. So the more times you try, the more scientific it becomes.”

His students would have fallen back asleep if the phone didn't ring again, seeming louder than before and somehow, more frantic. Carlos caught himself—how was a phone frantic? Phones don't sound frantic. But then, why did that word seem so accurate?

“Now—now. As I was saying,” he stammered out, looking back toward the slide projected against the wall behind him. “As I was um... what was I saying?”

Carlos read over the slide to remind himself, and by the time he looked back over at his desk, the young man from the front of the room had the stranger's phone in his hand and he was attempting to unlock it to answer, but the phone wouldn't respond to anything he tried.

“Hey, put that down!” Carlos complained, making his way over to snatch the phone out of his student's hand, it was bad enough he'd taken the stranger's phone, he didn't need other people taking the phone, or answering the phone, or anyone touching it honestly. The ringtone increased in pitch as it continued to carry on, and the young man passed it back with a sigh.

“You're no fun,” he whined.

Carlos was going to start into a new kind of lecture, how it wasn't about being fun, it was about respecting other people's property, but of course, he hadn't listened to that, himself. He was holding, in his hands, a phone that belonged to somebody whose name he only knew from snooping.

And it was....smoking?

He dropped the phone immediately when he realized that something was terribly wrong; it hadn't felt hot, nothing smelled like it was burning, but a thick white smoke had begun to come out from the speaker on the smartphone. Odorless, but not necessarily harmless.

“Everyone, out, out!” he called out to his students, and they took the advice as the best thing he'd ever told them and one by one, they quickly grabbed their things and left the room. Even the one who'd been trying to answer the phone mere moments before wanted nothing to do with it now that it was smoking on the floor.

Carlos didn't evacuate, though. He waited. He watched the phone. He realized, slowly, that what had come out of the speaker had begun to rain and thunder, a tiny weather system that hovered over the phone that had stopped playing music altogether. Maybe the weather had replaced the music.

Either way, he'd never seen anything quite like it before. It was perhaps the most scientifically interesting thing that he'd seen in years. He waited, and the clouds dissipated, leaving Cecil's phone soaking wet on the floor in the front of the empty auditorium.

He reached down and picked it up, carefully as though it might break if he moved too quickly. The screen, still locked, showed two missed calls from an unspecified number. Despite dropping it, the phone hadn't broken, nothing was damaged; even the water had done nothing to it. He wiped it dry on his labcoat and decided that the matter had been settled: it was time to return the bag.

He had to talk to the stranger.

* * *

 

Carlos found the directions that his own GPS gave him to be incredibly confusing; he'd gone to great lengths to figure out Cecil's address (it was written in the journal, next to a collection of scratched out older addresses), now that he knew the address, his GPS didn't seem to.

The sun had gone down and he made his way under the streetlights toward no particular place, until his GPS finally figured out what it wanted and sent him a bit in the opposite direction. Now he knew where he was going, absolutely. He'd been by the apartment buildings in question, before.

He rehearsed in his head how to go about doing it, and then rehearsed out loud under his breath,and for some reason the part of Cecil Palmer was played by his voice in falsetto.

“I tried finding you earlier,” he explained as himself, “I had to go to class, though. Important science things to teach.”

Then, as Cecil, he replied, “It's alright, science is important. I know that.”

“I was wondering, maybe, if you might let me study you? For science, of course.” He wasn't sure how to move into that topic, he tried a few times before he had any kind of smooth transition.

As Cecil, he answered himself, “Of course, anything for science.”

“Oh, thank you Mr. Palmer,” he replied to himself.

The next voice that answered wasn't his, and answered from the side of the road. “For what?”

Carlos startled, nearly losing his footing as he stumbled back away from the figure seated on the edge of the sidewalk, an unfamiliar voice, an unfamiliar shape, an unfamiliar person with a name that was slowly growing more familiar. He put two and two together when he realized that three eyes were staring back at him in the dark.

Something about Cecil looked different now, he couldn't entirely place his finger on it. Maybe it was that his eyes were glowing, dimly. Perhaps he had changed his outfit—no. He hadn't changed. He had been sitting outside of the apartment building all day, waiting in the hopes that he would be able to get into it eventually. He looked hurt. That's what looked different.

Suddenly his rehearsed ploy didn't make any sense. Carlos pulled the strap of Cecil's bag over his head and held it out with an apologetic smile.

“Sorry I um, kept it. I had class.” It was roughly what he'd been saying under his breath, just a little less smooth. Cecil took the bag back without hesitation, regardless.

He muttered a near-silent thank you. That was all. Carlos could only imagine that he knew the bag had been rifled through; it was obvious enough that he hadn't known how to put everything back in the right pockets again.

“I should have brought it back earlier. I was busy doing science, I forgot I had it, I, um.” Nothing could possibly be further from the truth than the words he was currently spouting, and Cecil's eyes were on him, staring, waiting for him to shut up.

Cecil rose to his feet, slinging it back over his shoulder. “It's fine. I wasn't planning on doing anything today, anyway. It was a lazy day. That's all.”

“Oh, that's good,” Carlos muttered in reply. Now that they were standing only a couple of feet apart, he was close enough to make out the tattoos on his arms, if only the light had been bright enough. Carlos tried to get a look anyway, curious.

Aware of the staring, Cecil rolled his sleeves down. Carlos looked back up toward his face, but it wasn't as easy to stare at a man's third eye when it was staring back at you. Through you. He wore glasses over the other two eyes, didn't the third need one? Wait, why was that the first question he had? Why were his normal eyes brown, why was his third eye... white? Milky purple? Was it surgically implanted? Was it a mutation?

Was he just going to stand there all day and try to figure out Cecil's eye, or was he going to be a scientist and ask about it?

He found his voice again, then. “I'm Carlos, the scientist. I teach down at the University of What It Is. I teach science. That's what I teach. That's why I'm a—yeah.” He offered his hand to the stranger.

“Neat,” he replied. “I'm Cecil.” He didn't shake Carlos' hand though. He was staring at it, almost like he didn't understand the gesture. Carlos lowered his hand after a moment.

Since he had arrived, Carlos had felt the stranger's discomfort like a near-tangible object; something about it changed the air around them. Now introduced, it was beginning to dissipate. Cecil was examining him just as curiously as he'd been staring moments before, again looking as fascinated with him as he had when they'd met in the grocery store, before.

Carlos decided to take a chance, in the name of science.

“Do you think I could have your phone number, Cecil?” he asked, and watched the man's sullen face light up like a Christmas tree, or at least his eyes gave off a more brilliant purple glow.

Cecil nodded, unchecked enthusiasm and an excited grin on his face. “You want my? Of course—yes. Of course. You can have my phone number, Carlos. You can have that.”

Pulling his own phone out, Carlos began to punch in new contact information. If Cecil noticed that his last name was included despite not saying it, he didn't mention having noticed. As he told his number to the scientist, he couldn't have possibly sounded more pleased with himself.

Once he'd finished punching in the number, Carlos sent him a text. “I just texted you,” he explained. “I put my name in it so you would know it was me.”

Moments later, Cecil's phone made a strange little chirping sound to signal that the text had been received. He pulled it out, giddy, and went about adding Carlos to his own contacts.

“I think we should talk more,” Carlos said. “Maybe tomorrow, or something. I have a lot I want to ask you. I've never met somebody so scientifically interesting before.”

Cecil peered up from his phone, his expression somewhat dampened now. “Oh. Yes, I would _love_ to talk about science with you.”

“Great. Um. I should get going.” Carlos stuffed his phone into his pocket again. Cecil was still watching him, his own phone still held in his hands like it was precious. He probably hadn't stepped foot in his apartment all day, but to Carlos, it seemed like he didn't want to just yet, either.

Nevertheless, he replied, “Of course. I'll talk to you tomorrow?”

Carlos nodded. “Tomorrow, or soon.”

“Tomorrow. Soon.” Cecil nodded. “Goodnight, Carlos. Goodnight.”

Carlos turned away to leave and bade the strange man goodnight, and he walked away. He wasn't sure how long Cecil stood on the sidewalk to watch him leave, but it felt like longer than it probably should have been.

Well, he would be investigating, soon enough.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm writing this for Camp NaNoWriMo and sharing it as I go along, so if there are any grammatical errors or continuity errors, I would appreciate if anybody pointed anything out to me.  
> But on the bright side, this means I'll be updating very frequently for as long as I can keep it up. Hope you enjoy!


	3. The Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos greets the day, ready to do a whole lot of science and other scientist things, only he finds out that the events of the previous night are already known to his supervisor. Dr. Sylvia Kayali calls him in for a meeting.

Carlos woke up with the sun the next morning, like he always did. It was the best way to start the day, really. Bright and early, frying eggs for breakfast. He crawled out of bed and pulled his house labcoat over his pajamas, the bright green plaid of the comfortable coat clashing with the blue and red of his pants. Nobody was around to watch him get dressed in the morning, anyway.

With his apartment to himself, he usually spent half the morning running back and forth between the tiny cramped kitchen and his bedroom. His scrambled eggs were frying in the pan while he dug through clothes he hadn't washed yet for a pair of slacks that didn't have any chemicals spilled on them. Laundry day would come with the weekend, he reminded himself, and he'd almost made it. It was Thursday. He only needed two more recycled outfits.

Pulling on the cleanest pair of pants he could find, Carlos hopped out to the kitchen with one foot still only half in the pant leg. His eggs weren't burnt yet, so he flipped the scrambled eggs around aimlessly with the spatula and then walked back to his room with his pants on properly.

Today was not a tie day, he decreed. Today was not a button up shirt day at all. For reasons other than the fact that every one of his nicer shirts was not looking too nice, without being washed. Carlos dug through his drawers and produced a reasonable enough shirt to wear to class. It was topical. There was an atom in the middle and it said, “Don't trust atoms: they make up everything.” That was appropriate for class, if anything ever was.

The smell of burning eggs alerted him that it was time to turn off the stove, and he ran back out into the kitchen to do so. Not bad. Today, he'd only burnt them a bit. He left the frying pan to cool and wandered back to his room to finish getting dressed.

Eating breakfast was a mix between actually forcing the burnt eggs into his mouth, and checking emails on his laptop in-between bites. If he didn't bother waking up so early, he knew he'd never be able to dawdle so much, but he made sure to buy himself extra time in the morning for that fact alone.

One of these days, he was even going to cook his eggs without burning them, and he wouldn't have to clean the taste out of his mouth each morning.

Carlos made his way into the bathroom to brush his teeth; he sighed at himself in the mirror. He'd been trying to hide the premature patches of grey on his temples, but each day they felt more obvious. He pulled his hair into a tail and watched the grey get even more obvious. He let it fall back down, it was still an acceptable length, it was only reaching his shoulders. He would bring an elastic to hold it back if he needed to later. Today, he was wearing it down.

As he made his way out the door, he almost forgot his cell phone on the kitchen counter. Rushing back in to grab it, he didn't notice that someone had been texting him, and stuffed it into his pocket without a second thought. He had a bus to catch if he didn't want to walk across town and show up late to his own class.

The bus arrived at the stop roughly when he did; Carlos got on, and sat near the back while he wrote a to-do list on the back of his hand for the day, in black pen. He had a few more lab reports to grade for his advanced organic chemistry class. That was probably going to wait for the last possible moment. He had to email back an advisee that seemed convinced she wasn't going to graduate on time. There were slides to set up for next week—

And the buzz of his cell phone reminded him, he was going to try and get in touch with Cecil. There was so much science to be done, still. He pulled the phone out and almost expected that the newcomer was texting him. This wasn't the case.

His TA was texting him, instead. Nice kid, they were aimed toward becoming a scientist as well. Always a pleasure to work with and make grade papers when he didn't feel like it. Their name was Avery, and while Avery had his number in case he needed to be contacted, they rarely had anything to say outside of school hours.

All morning, he must have been missing the texts, because he had quite the novel when he finally found them piled up.

[Dr. C did something happen last night?]

[I heard something happened in ur intro class?]

[Dr. Kayali is asking me where ur at.]

[I told her u didn't get here til 9 on Thursdays but she says she wants to talk to u?]

[Idk why, she sounded upset though.]

[Or maybe, nervous? maybe thats the word.]

[What happened in ur intro class Dr. C?]

[Are u still in bed?]

Most of the texts had reached his phone while he was busy getting himself together, but the last one had arrived only moments ago, and by the time he read to that point, a second came buzzing in.

[I heard what happened last night, Dr. K is pretty upset with u I think. what'd u find? that couldn'tve been a phone.]

The second was more foreboding:

[Dr. Kayali wants to talk with u right away.]

Carlos stared at the phone, dumbfounded, and struggled to find the words to reply. At length he settled on asking what Dr. Kayali wanted to talk to him about, if Avery even knew.

Which they seemed to.

[She wants to see that thing u had last night?]

He felt himself sink in his seat. Of course she wanted to see the phone, after he'd given it back to its rightful owner. Carlos swore under his breath and half considered calling up Cecil to ask if he could have it back, just to see it.

How would that go over?  _Hey, can I borrow your phone to maybe take apart for science?_ No. That wasn't going to work at all. He eyed the strange man's number in his contacts, his forefinger was so close to pressing the call button. He just didn't know what he could possibly say.

Or what he was going to say to his supervisor, when he arrived on campus and didn't have the phone anymore. Dr. Sylvia Kayali was the head of not just the chemistry department, but the entire science-oriented half of the school. She didn't care much for the arts. He half wished he was an art teacher in that moment, just so he wouldn't have to answer to her on this slip-up.

Not that he was likely to be yelled at or face real consequences or anything, but still. It was going to be awkward, and she was going to accuse him of not being a very good scientist.

Which he wasn't, if he couldn't call up Cecil and ask to see the phone again. And he couldn't.

Carlos stepped off the bus like a man headed to his own funeral, but he put on a brave face and arrived at Dr. Kayali's office looking upbeat. He was going to get through this just fine, a scientist is  _ always _ fine. He knocked, and the door swung open relatively quickly. 

Dr. Kayali ushered him inside and shut the door behind him. “Take a seat.”

He took a seat, she had nicer chairs in her office for guests than he had in his office for himself. Carlos watched the woman walk back toward her desk again, expecting her to sit across from him. She didn't. She paced, her long dark hair switching two and fro with her walk.

“Carlos,” she began, then stopped again. It took her a moment to start a second time. “Carlos, I have no idea what happened last night. But I am very interested. It sounds very, very interesting.”

“I can explain,” he began. She didn't let him finish.

“Good. Explain. I think an explanation is in order.”

Dr. Kayali took her seat across from him, behind her desk, and watched him closely as he struggled to find a proper explanation. He couldn't just call it a student's phone anymore, not after what had happened; that could get somebody in trouble. Get someone's belongings confiscated.

He cleared his throat. “I don't know, exactly. What happened. I don't know. I'm beginning an investigation, into it. That's what I'm doing.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “That wasn't an explanation, professor. I want to see the device. I want to be a part of these investigations.”

Carlos shook his head. The words came out quiet. “I don't have it, right now.”

Dr. Kayali was silent. He was forced to continue talking, on his own.

“I returned the phone to its owner.” He instantly regretted the statement, because what followed was the extremely predictable question:

“Whose is it?”

What could he say? He took it from the stranger? That he rifled through the stranger's bags and knows more than he feels like he should share, because it wasn't gathered with consent? That he's got the stranger's number, and he wants to continue investigating? That he doesn't want people to know what he's doing because he's a scientist, he's supposed to be scientific, and investigating someone off of rumors is not scientific?

No. He reminds himself, it is perfectly scientific. What happened last night, that was not a rumor. That was an anomaly. And it needed investigating.

“It belongs to the newcomer,” he replied at length. “Cecil Palmer.”

Dr. Kayali's eyes widened at the revelation. “The newcomer? You know his _name_?”

Carlos thought back over the rumors that he'd been hearing since the stranger's initial arrival, two weeks ago. And one of the things they'd all had in common: nobody knew his name. All the words they'd spread around, nobody had bothered to approach him and ask him his name.

“Yes. We talked, when I gave back his phone. About science. He said he would tell me about it later, I have his phone number.” He reached for his phone, then hesitated. Patted his pocket on the outside. “I think I forgot it at home.”

She sighed in exasperation. “You need to keep organized. I would have liked to have spoken with this individual, about his... that was a phone? I have never heard of a phone making a cloud of smoke like that, before.” Dr. Kayali paused. “I wish that the security cameras could have picked up on it. All I have is hearsay, which is of course, not conclusive evidence for anything.”

He blinked. “They didn't pick up on it? I thought it was pretty big. It was—it was, well, it was pretty small, the cloud. It was pretty small, but it was big enough, the cameras would pick up on that. It was a few feet off the ground—I think. I didn't measure, I should have.”

“The security cameras are not working this morning,” Dr. Kayali replied. “They stopped working last night, in fact. The last clip is of the phone ringing, and then stopping.”

Carlos paused at this, and almost admitted to lying about his phone, just to get some answers. But he didn't. “That's very unusual. Very interesting, but unusual.”

Dr. Kayali sighed. “I want you to look out for yourself, professor. We don't know what this means, or how dangerous the newcomer may be. By all means, investigate—I don't know if there will ever be another opportunity like this. I would like to investigate as well, if the opportunity arises, there is so much to learn. But do not let your guard down.”

He nodded. “I should get to class. I'm already late.”

“Alright. Keep me updated. Let me know if you find out anything.”

Carlos rose from his seat and made his way for the door, only to be stopped when she called over to him on his way out.

“Oh, and Carlos? Don't tell anybody else that you know the outsider's name.”

The door clicked shut behind him as he left.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a bit self-conscious about throwing in OCs, but given that we don't know the names of many people at the University of What It Is, I'm going to fill in some roles. So say hi to Carlos' TA, Avery.   
> And say hi to new tags for the story! I'll add more tags as characters join the party.


	4. The Half-Moon Cafe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos decides that he is most certainly, without any doubt, going to investigate Cecil Palmer. Of course, it's a lot harder to investigate another person than it is to investigate something that can't talk or feel self-conscious.

Carlos couldn't help but feel distracted as he taught, all through the morning and afternoon. At least, he told himself, he had no evening classes to worry about.

As a kid, all he'd ever imagined doing with his science was discovering great, amazing new things. Of course, there seemed a limited number of new and exciting discoveries left to be made, a worldview-shattering revelation he'd had in the middle of his college years. Sure, anything could be science if you did it right, but the people who published papers and paid for research only cared about retesting old theories, solidifying old ideas, or discovering new things with the sort of groundbreaking power of curing cancer.

He didn't suspect he'd be anybody who could cure cancer some day, or anything to that effect. Carlos had instead resigned himself to teaching. It was good enough, it paid well, he got to teach his students about science. For some of them, the light would come on in their lives and they would go on maybe to be the people who helped cure cancer. Others couldn't care less. They were taking prerequisites, and then they'd be gone.

Always, no matter the student population, Carlos had wholeheartedly infused as much enthusiasm as he could into his lessons. He was fascinated, fascinated with the _idea_ of science. Maybe a lot of the work that was being done these days, a lot of the work that was being funded, just wasn't up to his standards of what science was supposed to be. It didn't have to be flashy, no, but it had to keep moving forward. New discoveries had to still exist everywhere; what was the point of being a scientist if the majority of your job was about waiting to see if tried and tested theories could ever be fully proven?

Somewhere in his twenties, he'd lost the spark. Well, that would be a bit of a lie. He'd never given up on science—no scientist could ever give up on science. He'd only given up on ever doing anything of importance, himself.

Back in his office during an early lunch, he stared at his phone and waited for it to give him some kind of answer. For Avery to remind him that he had too much work to do to bother with extracurricular scientist activities. For Cecil to text him and say they should meet up. Neither happened. He had to finish his sandwich in peace and hurry off to his next class and pretend that he didn't have more pressing matters than what happened in the process of denaturing DNA.

It was a very, very long class. Well, it was about two hours. But it felt like days.

By the time he was out for the day, Carlos had made up his mind. Nobody was telling him he had any responsibilities to tend to, and Dr. Kayali had given him permission to investigate if he wanted to.

God, did he want to.

Carlos slipped away once his class was done. Normally, he might stick around in his office for a few hours, it wasn't like he had anything else to do most days.

His phone was in his hand as fast as he was off-campus, hopefully out of earshot of any students, anyone who might be curious who he was calling. Carlos pulled up his contacts list and dialed Cecil's number, and there he stood, in the middle of the sidewalk, forgetting that he was supposed to keep walking. He was waiting, instead.

Waiting as the phone went past the first ring. Was it playing the same ringtone as it had the night before? He wondered about this.

The phone went past the second ring. Did Cecil have trouble unlocking it, too? No, he couldn't have. He would know how the lock was set up.

It went past the third ring. He concluded that Cecil didn't have the phone on him, and then moments later, he was proven wrong when the other line picked up.

“Hello? Carlos?” The answer was high-pitched, giddy.

“I'm not calling for personal reasons,” he prefaces in response to Cecil's excitement. “I wanted to talk to you about what happened last night.”

He could almost hear the drop in Cecil's excitement. “Oh? What about last night?”

“Your phone went off while I was teaching,” Carlos began, and before he had the chance to explain what had happened in the middle of his class, Cecil interrupted.

“Oh, it wasn't set to silent. I hope my ringtone didn't interrupt.”

Carlos hesitated, unsure if Cecil had any idea what his phone did, besides just ringing. “Your ringtone was— ...not a problem, Cecil.” He sighed. “Do you know that your phone emits miniature weather systems, when it rings?”

After no response came for a minute or two, he half expected that the information really did come as a complete shock to Cecil, which would have been interesting, but not as interesting as how he really did respond, once he found his voice again.

“Oh. Oh dear. You know, it's the funniest thing, I left two weeks ago, and my old Station Management has still been calling me. I have _tried_ to tell them, I don't live there anymore, and they need to stop calling me. I said, _guys_ , Maureen can handle anything that's going on. She's got it _under control_ , you don't need to keep calling me. But they just said,” he trailed off into a sound that Carlos was not sure a man could physically make.

He held the phone away from his ear, cringing at the chalkboard sounds of whatever Cecil was doing, at least until the stranger resumed speaking as though nothing odd had just happened.

“And I told them I needed my space! I'm a free man now, right? I can't just go back and keep helping them every time there's something new to report on. I mean, literally _can't_. I can't go back to the community radio with someone else announcing. We'll have to—“

“Cecil.” He finally interrupted. As much as he, oddly, felt like he could have listened to Cecil ramble on all day, there were more pressing matters to attend to. Such as science. Science was always more pressing than listening to even the most honey-voiced stranger talk.

Cecil was quiet a moment and then came the next barrage of words, “Oh, I'm sorry Carlos. I just talk so much when I'm nervous, it's a force of habit, really. You don't want to hear about my boring job. Well. Former job. I mean—“

“No,” Carlos interrupted, “That's fine. You can talk about your job. But I think we should meet up somewhere. I don't have a lot of minutes left on my phone.”

He held the phone away from his ear at the noise that Cecil failed to contain, some kind of giddy laugh-squeal that trailed off into excited babbling about all of the places they could meet, the things they could do, the things that Cecil had been meaning to check out and hadn't gotten around to, yet.

Carlos was half tempted to invite him back somewhere they could speak in private, he wanted to get more information out of the stranger than he imagined Cecil being willing to talk about in public. But, he remembered what Dr. Kayali had told him, and he had to agree.

He still didn't know Cecil enough to know that it was safe to even meet with him.

Interrupting the other man's enthusiastic rambling, Carlos had to speak up. “We should meet at the Half-Moon. It's a coffee shop. It should be just a few blocks away from your apartment, I can take the bus and be there in twenty minutes. A half hour, tops.”

“Alright, it's a date,” Cecil replied exuberantly.

“It's... it's not a date,” Carlos corrected. “I just want to talk to you. Not for personal reasons. I want to talk to you about...” he trailed off. “I'll be there in a half hour.”

Carlos hung up and stuffed his phone back in his pocket, frowning at nothing in particular that he could identify. Just an odd feeling, perhaps. He made his way to the bus stop and waited.

 

* * *

 

The Half-Moon Cafe had a lot of fond memories for Carlos. It was where he asked out his first boyfriend. They'd gone on a lot of dates there, because he'd lived closer to the area, then.

He couldn't reason why he'd invited a science experiment to the coffee shop where he'd had his first kiss, but he'd done it anyway. It was a quaint little shop that had once served ice cream, and the floors were tiled in red and white checkerboard, and the tables where people sat outside to sip at their drinks were cast iron, reminders of what the shop had once been.

Carlos was still halfway down the block when he realized that Cecil had sat outside to wait for him, at one of those little white cast iron tables. Nobody else it could have been, with that bright purple hair. He was wearing a sunhat, but his hair stuck out long enough underneath that it was easy to tell.

That, and the bright, clashing colors on his button up shirt. That was another easy sign. He had no idea how long Cecil had been waiting there, but clearly, long enough to have already gotten himself a drink. At least he hadn't gotten ahead of himself and ordered anything for Carlos.

Now that he was actually doing this, he wasn't so sure he wanted to. And he might have turned back around, told Cecil that something held him up, but Cecil turned around and spotted him, almost as if expecting his arrival at that moment (or maybe, he'd just been doing this the entire time he was sitting there, that was possible too).

That was when Carlos realized that Cecil was wearing a fake mustache. He gritted his teeth and walked over, he'd already committed to doing this, no matter what. It was for science.

Cecil was bubbling over with excitement when he arrived, “Oh, how did you know it was me, Carlos? I was going to surprise you.” He poked at the mustache, and in one shining moment it became clear that he really, actually was the sort of person who probably believed that those fake nose disguises worked. Perhaps the only reason he hadn't worn one of those was because he already wore real glasses.

“It was a lucky guess,” Carlos answered, and at Cecil's urging, took a seat across from him. He looked Cecil over; the sun hat almost entirely hid his third eye, worn down low on his head like it was. He smiled at Carlos like a nervous child awaiting his approval.

Instead of complimenting Cecil's superior disguise skills, Carlos got down to business, the business being science. And asking Cecil important questions, completely tactlessly.

“Cecil, where are you even _from_? Does everybody there look like... like this?” He waved a hand over at Cecil, not sure what he was gesturing at in particular, but expecting that Cecil would fill in if anything was a peculiarity of the place he came from.

He looked down at himself, at his technicolor nightmare of a shirt, at the patchy skirt he wore underneath it, clashing with the color in a faded brown sort of way. He looked back up at Carlos. “I don't understand? Everybody looks like this here, too, don't they?”

Carlos frowned. “No, Cecil. People don't have extra eyes. It's, well. Weird.” He only decided, as he was saying it, that he wasn't going to make this conversation about Cecil's bizarre dress sense. That wasn't remotely as scientifically interesting as some other things.

“Oh. _That_. That's what you're talking about.” Cecil reached up and pulled his hat down a little further over his forehead. “There. Gone. Is that better?”

He shook his head, “I want to see. I didn't say hide it.”

Hesitantly, Cecil pulled off his sunhat, revealing his eye in all its glory, and now in the proper light of day Carlos was sure it was... white? Sort of opalescent? He stared at the strange man's third eye, while Cecil's two normal eyes stared back, and he wasn't sure where the third one was looking at all.

“Can you see out of that eye?” he asked, leaning across the table to get a closer look. Cecil tensed where he sat, but didn't move away at all. Carlos also noted that his third eye didn't blink.

“Of course I can see!” he sounded almost offended. “Better in that eye than any. I don't even have to wear glasses for it. I don't know if anybody makes glasses for three eyes, so that's good.”

Nodding, Carlos nevertheless pointed out, “It looks blind. Blind eyes look really white, and it looks like that, sort of? I don't know, what it looks like actually. I thought it was blind though. How can you see if there isn't a pupil?”

Cecil shrugged and didn't answer except to say again, “I can see fine.”

“Of course.” Carlos shifted back in his seat, to sit properly again. Cecil relaxed now that Carlos wasn't right up in his face and staring him down, but the eye contact didn't go away. Even with two of Cecil's eyes off of him momentarily, he still felt watched. Going on feelings was not very scientific, but he thought maybe that was how he could tell where Cecil's third eye was staring.

They sat in silence for a time, neither of them sure exactly what to say next. At length, Carlos told Cecil that he could take the fake mustache off.

“Well I won't be disguised anymore, then,” he remarked, but he pulled the mustache off anyway. Carlos didn't bother telling him that he hadn't been disguised in the first place.

“You didn't answer me before, about your eye. Does everybody have one where you're from?”

Cecil laughed, “Of course. Everyone has eyes here, too. At least two, usually, not just one.”

At first, Carlos frowned, and he was going to argue against Cecil's terribly unfunny joke, but... no, okay, maybe it was a little funny. “But do they have _three_ where you came from?”

He only shook his head, and didn't give any further information.

Now Carlos was watching him again, which always had the effect that Cecil would stare right back at him in return. Clearly, wherever he came from, he was still unusual. He must have been used to the staring, then. That was why he didn't bother hiding it. Everyone already stared at him, anyway.

He wanted to ask about the tattoos as well, since he'd gotten no good luck at them to really clarify whether they were ritualistic or some kind of strange pattern of tentacles, as he'd heard. Cecil didn't have his sleeves rolled up, and Carlos didn't know if it was alright to ask.

“Where did you come from, anyway? You were talking about it earlier, but you didn't say the name. Were things different there than they are here?” Carlos started a game of twenty questions, not giving Cecil the chance to answer before he'd spilled out quite a few. “Does everybody's phone make little clouds there? And you had a bunch of rocks in your bag. Were those from there? They looked—“

Cecil interrupted him, “Those were my bloodstones. I hope you didn't take them out, because now I'll have to cleanse them if you did. But tell me if you did. I know you went through my bag, that's okay. I want to know what you touched.”

Now it was Carlos' turn to be the tense one. He considered how to answer, was honesty best?

He settled on honesty. “I took the rocks out. And I had to look in your journal for your address. And I touched your phone. It was ringing, but I couldn't unlock it.”

“You shouldn't be able to. It only listens to me. I knew you opened my journal. Is this how everyone greets each other here? Nobody has called me an interloper yet, either.”

“An interloper? Why would anybody call you that?”

Cecil shrugged. “I am one. I don't belong. I came from somewhere else. I'm different, I'm an outsider. An interloper. No one has issued the customary greeting, do I have to wait for it?”

Carlos was quiet. Nobody had called Cecil an interloper, that was certain, but there were quite a number of other words for what he was. A stranger. The newcomer. A freak. And more perceptive than Carlos gave him credit for, albeit in a backwards sort of way, and he wasn't even upset about it. There was no accusation in his voice, no frustration.

It was simply a matter of fact, to Cecil, that he wasn't going to be welcomed with open arms.

“I don't think you're an interloper, Cecil. I don't think that's how it works. Visiting somewhere doesn't make you an interloper.” In front of Cecil, he was ready to defend the man's right to be an outsider without feeling like one.

Cecil frowned. “Carlos, Carlos. Perfect Carlos. I'm not visiting, you see? I'm staying.”

He scarcely caught the second half of Cecil's remark, “What did you just...?”

Realizing what he'd said, Cecil reached up to cover his face with his hands, a blush spreading across his cheeks that wasn't pink, but rather a more purplish hue cast over his brown skin that didn't look quite natural. His third eye clamped shut in embarrassment, the first time Carlos had seen it close, and he was just marveling at what that must have meant that Cecil didn't blush red.

“Sorry,” Cecil muttered, muffled into his hands. “It slipped out.”

“Are you turning _purple_?”

“No...?” it came out very uncertain, like a denial that Cecil couldn't even say resolutely, maybe a futile hope that he wasn't turning purple right now. He made sure to cover his face more properly, hiding as much as he could as embarrassment turned into mortification.

Carlos wasn't even thinking about anything except how fascinating the whole thing was, and he was staring. It probably didn't help terribly much with Cecil's absolute embarrassment, and he finally rose from his seat without uncovering his face and attempted to excuse himself.

“Oh, am I making you...?” Carlos began, but Cecil didn't even let him finish before he snatched his sun hat off the table and scurried away as fast as he could manage without looking _too_ terribly much like he was running away.

Watching the strange man flee, Carlos frowned. Well, that was very, very odd.

He picked Cecil's little fake mustache up off the table and pocketed it with a chuckle.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If my chapters keep getting longer every time, this will very shortly get completely out of control. But I don't think they will...at least I hope they won't.
> 
> Thanks for the kudos and the bookmarks! I hope I continue to deliver quality content!


	5. Distractions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos finds it increasingly difficult to focus on the things that he's supposed to be doing, like schoolwork, in light of newer, more interesting things to pay attention to.

  Carlos didn't think much about Cecil over the next few days.

Well, that was a lie. He thought a lot about Cecil. He thought a lot about how somebody could have a perfectly formed third eye, symmetrical, more even than any mutation could make it. He scoured Google and couldn't find any results explaining it. This wasn't a common fluke.

He thought a lot about how, if somebody blushed purple, they probably didn't bleed red. The darker parts of him thought about how to accidentally reveal whatever color Cecil bled. The more reasonable majority realized that was not and would never be approved by any IRB as a morally correct way to gain data on a human subject.

He wondered about if IRB approval still counted if the humanity of the subject was questionable. He'd never applied for approval to test on humans. As a chemistry major, it never came up, though he'd known a number of psychology majors in undergrad, and they did nothing but complain about the process.

A pile of tests had to be graded Friday night, and he still had those lab reports Saturday, and as far as he was concerned, those still had to take precedence over meeting up again with the newcomer.

So he kept his phone far away from reach, and he didn't think about Cecil much more than just a bit. The tiniest, tiniest little bit.

Late on Sunday night, knee deep in scientific literature and preparing his next lecture, Carlos' phone buzzed on the opposite side of the table. He stared over at it as it buzzed again. And again. And again. With restraint, he picked it up calmly.

Something had told him that it wasn't going to be Avery texting him about printing off lab instructions, this time of night. He would have denied trusting any gut feeling, but it was right.

Cecil had finally worked up the courage, or perhaps just finally figured out something to text him about, without waiting to be contacted first.

[You said you work at the University, right?]

[I was wondering, and you can tell me no if the answer is no, but I've been looking around town and nobody has accepted my application, I really do need somebody to give me a chance. I don't have enough of a buffer to keep my apartment for very long if I can't find work. Which, I mean, everyone has that problem, so I'm not special. But I was just wondering.]

[Do you know if the University has a radio station?]

Carlos boggled at the texts. He really did babble just as much in text as he did out loud. How had he even written that in the few moments it took him to send all three texts?

[I think so?]

If truth be told, Carlos had never listened to the school's radio. He had the vaguest idea that one existed, he thought he'd heard call letters once or twice. He didn't even own a radio.

[Great! Do you know if they accept outside talent? I'm not a student, but I _am_ a radio professional. I used to run a radio show at the community radio back home, they called me the Voice of Night Vale. For quite a few years. So many, many years. Anyway! I don't know if they have any openings. Or if they want any outside help. Or, you know. You _know_.]

[Cecil, I don't think that's a paid position anyway.]

[Oh.]

The tiny, one word response hit Carlos harder than it should have, and he wasn't sure why. Since Cecil wasn't actively writing up any novels to send over, Carlos had to sit and think for a while before he came up with a proper reply. It didn't do any good for anyone to end up homeless.

[Have you tried applying for different jobs, maybe? You might just need to wait for an opening in radio somewhere. I'm sure there are always jobs in retail somewhere.]

Cecil's reply took a surprisingly long time, considering it was shorter than the others.

[I tried everywhere.]

The depth of what it meant to be an outsider was finally dawning on Carlos. He'd never been one, himself; he'd lived here all his life. He'd seen strangers come and go, some of them stuck around. Usually, anyone who found themselves branded so unusual, as Cecil had, left sooner than later. An action he had previously attributed to choice.

Along with everyone else, he had been contributing to the very atmosphere that drove any new and interesting individual away, but he'd never seen anything like Cecil before, and the thought of losing that opportunity was unthinkable.

[I'll see if I can talk to anyone at the University. It might not be a radio job, but I will try to get you a job somewhere. I think people just need to get used to you. That's all.]

Cecil began pouring out a stream of thank yous at that point, that Carlos tried to interrupt multiple times before he managed to finally get through, and noticed.

[Don't mention it.]

[Alright!! I won't mention it. Ever. Never again. Oh, wonderful Carlos.]

He eyed that text a little funny, certainly. Cecil had gone from enthusiasm to silence in a second flat, apparently taking him quite seriously on not mentioning it. Well, that was... one way to do it.

[And Cecil? If it doesn't work, and if you need somewhere to stay, and if somebody else has not offered, and if you want to. You can stay here if you need to.]

Carlos wasn't sure why he offered it, but was relieved to be turned down nevertheless.

[Oh, I couldn't, you perfect, generous man. I simply couldn't.]

[Well, if you needed to. I need to go do science things for class now though.]

[Of course! Of course. Oh, thank you again, Carlos. Wait. Forget I mentioned it. Mention it? I didn't mention anything. Goodnight, wonderful Carlos. Goodnight.]

His eyes lingered over Cecil's last text longer than they should have, before he returned the goodnight and put his phone on the other side of the table again. He wasn't going to look at it anymore. He had a lecture to prepare for, tomorrow. And now, he also had to come up with an excuse for why somebody at the University had to give Cecil a job.

Carlos pushed up his glasses on the bridge of his nose and got back down to business.

* * *

Monday morning, Carlos was distracted all through his morning routine. He woke up with the sun, but he didn't dance around the house as he dressed himself. He just pulled on his clothes for the day—finally clean, after the weekend—and set up a frying pan of eggs on the stove as he sat down to his laptop, staring at several drafts of a speech he'd attempted to compose, the night before.

When it came down to it, less than a week ago he'd been told to be careful. Dr. Kayali had warned him not to risk himself, he didn't know anything about the newcomer aside from his name—

(and that he had a third eye, and that he blushed purple, and that he had absolutely no filters and thought Carlos was perfect and)

—so there was no sense in putting him around students, was there? Asking for a job for him at the University, of all places? That was patently irresponsible and illogical thinking. But he had to keep Cecil in town if he wanted to investigate further. And if he wanted to keep Cecil in town, he had to help Cecil keep his apartment. He had to help Cecil get a job.

He'd written half a dozen scripted conversations, trying to suspect what different people would say to him. Carlos would try the school radio first, but he was still quite sure there was no paid position to be found there. After, he could still try janitorial positions, he could try cafeteria work, there had to be somebody, somewhere, who was willing to give Cecil a chance. See past his eccentricities.

In the name of science, it was important. Also, he would feel pretty bad if Cecil got chased out of town or something.

Carlos burned his eggs, sitting only a few feet away from them, he was so entrenched in trying to figure out how he was going to talk to anyone, everyone. He ran over to shut the burner off and left them to cool while he checked his phone, an impulsive habit he'd been trying to ignore all morning.

No new text messages.

He plated his eggs too quickly and nearly burnt his hand holding the plate, but at least he knew better by that point than to put them in his mouth until they'd cooled. That wasn't always the case.

Then they were cold, and he was running out the door, forgetting his plate of burnt eggs because he was going to miss the bus. Carlos absolutely had his life together. Beyond any doubt.

That morning he was just glad that he had Avery to help keep his class under control, because he was stumbling over his lecture, explaining the chemical bonding of nucleic acids.

And his phone rang.

“A-and, and, the um.” Carlos stammered and stopped talking. This was it, he was going to become notorious as the professor whose phone went off all the time during class, and worse yet, the professor who really wanted to stop his classes to answer his phone when it went off, because he had no idea who was calling him or _why_ , but he had some theories. And he always wanted to test theories. That was the scientific thing to do, wasn't it?

 _Why_ was he so distracted?

Avery ushered him away from the podium and took over, no doubt assuming some matter of life and death hung in the balance, and that was why he'd quit mid-lecture to stare toward his bag as some generic preset ringtone chirped away.

Carlos began to protest, his TA shushed him.

“Go on, pick it up,” they hissed under their breath, and then cleared their throat and turned to face the classroom. Picking up where Carlos had left off, eyes glued to his notes to make sure they didn't miss a single word. The podium was almost too tall for them to stand at. It would have been funny if half the room wasn't busy staring at their professor as he stumbled over to his bag and ripped his phone out of it like it really _was_ a matter of life and death.

 _Why_ was it such a big deal?

He left the room and anything else that happened after that, he trusted Avery to keep a handle on. He was busy answering his phone, yes. Answering his phone like a reasonable, levelheaded scientist. That was what he was. Reasonable and levelheaded.

Carlos finally answered, and he was met with an automated service reminding him to pick up his prescription at the pharmacy. Just that. Pick up his prescription.

Hands still shaking, he stared at the phone and ended the call.

This wasn't logical. It wasn't logical in the least. He couldn't clear his head enough to quit thinking about Cecil, he hadn't wiped that man's face from his mind's eye since they'd first run into each other. He'd burrowed in and made himself at home in the back of Carlos' mind. Something was wrong. Something was extremely wrong, and some part of him sensed it.

It was some other part of him that was there when Avery stepped out during the mid-lecture break and confronted him in the hallway. Five feet tall and unimposing and generally just as anxious as Carlos half the time, they spoke in a stronger voice than he could muster, presently.

“Dr. C, _what's_ going on?”

He'd taken a seat on the floor in the hall. He couldn't keep track of just how long he'd been sitting there. Looking up, it took his eyes a moment to focus on the face of his assistant, mercifully unobscured, as Avery had tied back their unruly hair for the time being.

Carlos stumbled over his words and settled on, “I don't know,” because it was completely honest, if nothing else. He found, moments later, that Avery was attempting to check his temperature with the back of their hand, he must have been looking feverish.

“Don't.” He pushed their hand away, not enjoying the thought of being touched.

“Sorry, Dr. C,” Avery murmured, watching him helplessly for several moments. “Are you sick? Should I call an ambulance or something? I don't know what to do.”

He shook his head but he quickly stopped, the motion making him dizzy. Where had that come from? He'd been fine when he woke up. “I must be. Getting sick, I mean, I...” Carlos tried for a moment to clear his thoughts. “I should go home.”

Avery cast a nervous glance back toward the classroom but said nothing except, “Do what you've got to, Dr. C. You want me to grab your bag?”

He nodded, and they hurried back into the room to pick Carlos' bag up and lug it out to him in the hallway. He stared for several moments, like he could look straight through them. Then he stood up, took the bag, and apologized for leaving. But that didn't mean he didn't leave.

Practically every thought in his head was reminding him, he'd made a promise to Cecil, he'd made a promise to Cecil. There were so many people to talk to, so much to try and align, spinning his head until he was retching in a drinking fountain, glad that he'd eaten nothing for breakfast.

After he'd quit heaving, Carlos stared at himself reflected blurrily in the metal of the fountain and he thought he was looking mighty pale. He must have been getting sick, that was it. He would take the day off, maybe the next if it didn't go away.

Carlos made his way off-campus, promising himself that he'd make up his promise to Cecil just as soon as he was feeling better. It seemed a little odd of a promise to worry so much about, but he didn't think about that very long, and rode the bus back home without a thought in his head.

The steps up to his apartment, while only on the second floor, presented a nigh insurmountable task as he made his way home, and by the time he unlocked the door to his apartment and stumbled inside, he was ready to fall onto the couch and shut off.

And maybe sleep for a day or three, or at least, that's what it felt like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that abrupt change of mood signals the end of "things are normal" and the beginning of "then things got weird". All will begin to make sense sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.
> 
> Updates are bound to slow down on weekdays, but I hope to get at least a chapter or two out during the weekdays, to keep my momentum going through the weekends as well.
> 
> Thanks for all the kudos and bookmarks! You guys are awesome.


	6. Nothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos wakes up to the strangest news that he's probably ever heard, and he has a nice long chat about it with Cecil. He isn't quite sure how Cecil found his apartment, either, but in light of everything else, that's the least of anyone's worries.

Some hours later, Carlos stirred and it was dark outside the window, and his phone buzzed on the floor and he couldn't recall exactly how it had wound up there, but it didn't buzz again and he could ignore it if he really wanted to. Relax. Just lay on the couch a while. He was pleasantly surprised to find that whatever strange illness had come over him earlier, he wasn't feeling any of it now.

Pleasantly surprised, and a little bit confused, perhaps.

Carlos reached down to pick up the phone, to two solitary texts from Cecil:

[Oh, Carlos, I'm sorry, I wanted to keep you safe. Forgive me.]

[Text me when you wake up.]

The first was from several hours ago. The time on his phone said it was 7:18 PM, the more recent text was from five minutes ago, and the older one may have been timed around when he came home, earlier in the day. He puzzled over that for several moments before a third text rolled in.

[Please tell me if you're alright.]

His instinctual response was to ask why he wouldn't be alright, but he held off on answering. Carlos watched the phone and waited. Testing a theory, perhaps.

Cecil texted him once again: [Carlos, please answer me. Are you alright?]

Somewhat odd, he figured, that Cecil had sent him two texts during the entire time he'd been asleep, and suddenly now kept sending more. The next test to his theory was straightforward.

Carlos texted back: [Are you watching me?]

A long hesitation, and then Cecil attempted to call him. He wanted to refuse the call, but he pressed the accept button by reflex and after a moment of silence, Cecil assumed that he wasn't going to be greeted very cheerfully, and he spoke up first.

"Are you alright, Carlos?" he asked, worried. "I didn't know what to expect, I haven't been around anyone who hasn't been used to--"

As difficult as it was to wedge himself into Cecil's rambling, Carlos interrupted him sternly, "What is going on, Cecil? Why are you  _ apologizing _ , what did you  _ do _ ?"

Cecil hesitated for several long moments before simply concluding, "We need to talk. Don't go near the University. In fact. Don't go anywhere. I'll come to you. Stay in your apartment."

"What are you  _ talking _ about, Cecil?" he complained, "Is there something going on?"

Naturally, Cecil denied that anything could have possibly been going on. "I mean, something is going on  _ somewhere _ , of course. Things are always happening. But nothing is happening here. Stay in your apartment, Carlos. I'll come find you."

"Cecil wait--" he began, too late to stop Cecil from hanging up.

His remaining options were to wait and see if Cecil really did already know where his apartment was, or to leave before he found that out. Carlos had never felt so simultaneously uneasy and unbelievably curious. So he sat at the kitchen table with his laptop and checked emails and pretended that he wasn't the least bit nervous about what that meant, if Cecil actually knew where he lived.

What else did Cecil know?

Though he'd done his fair share of snooping through the stranger's things, when he'd had them in his possession, it was somehow far less innocent when paired with Cecil's unfamiliarity. It was the same fear he'd recognized and condemned in everyone who'd refused to give Cecil a chance to prove himself harmless. He barely recognized it in himself, and tried to shut it up anyway.

Something scientifically interesting was happening, that could be reason enough to let it take its course. No, it  _ was _ reason enough. He wasn't going to turn it down.

Sure enough, some twenty minutes later, there was a knock at his door, hesitant, almost a little bit afraid of being too loud. Carlos gave it a few moments and didn't rush to the door.

When he appeared at the door, he would be calm and cool and collected. He swung the door open and Cecil stood there looking apologetic, but apologetic for what?

"Carlos. Are you alright?" he asked, sounding out of breath. Carlos reasoned that he probably hadn't taken public transportation, and there were quite a few blocks to run between their apartments.

He watched Cecil's expression carefully as he responded, "Of course I'm alright. What's going on, Cecil? You're acting very...  _ weird _ ." The word was said with reluctance; he knew it must have been a common enough word for the strange man to hear.

Cecil laughed once, sharply, unnaturally, and attempted to edge his way into Carlos' apartment. "I mean,  _ nothing _ is going on. Nothing. A whole lot of it." He babbled away in a manner that Carlos was beginning to realize was pretty typical of him. "In fact, you could say there's a lot more nothing than there used to be. But I  _ already  _ told you this, Carlos. Nothing is happening. Just nothing."

Carlos pushed him back out into the hallway. When they touched for that brief moment, a tingle of some energy passed from Cecil to him, and he made a mental note of that. "If nothing is happening, then why are you here? Why are you acting like this, Cecil?"

"No, Carlos, nothing has happened.  _ Nothing. _ It's already happened." He was visibly trying to find an opening, some way to try a second time at getting in. "In fact, that's why I'm here. To talk about nothing. You know.  _ Nothing. _ "

Finally grasping that there must have been a second meaning, Carlos took the bait. "Okay so. Nothing happened. You want to talk about nothing? Tell me about nothing."

Relief spread across Cecil's face, he'd finally been understood. "Can I come in? I would like to come inside and talk about nothing with you."

Carlos wasn't sure what the tactic was, but he finally conceded; Cecil wasn't going to tell him anything about nothing until he was inside the apartment. He stepped out of the doorway and let Cecil in. That time, he was pretty sure Cecil brushed against him on purpose.

The apartment wasn't much for living space, certainly. He had a lone sofa in the living room, and no kind of television or anything else. His kitchen was smaller yet. Cecil naturally gravitated to sit at the kitchen table, and Carlos followed after him and watched the stranger make himself at home.

After Cecil had sat down, and Carlos refused to do so, he asked from where he stood in the doorway, "Alright. Tell me about nothing, Cecil. What's nothing?"

Cecil laughed like it were some joke. "Nothing is just  _ nothing _ , Carlos."

"That's not what I--" he stopped himself and reconsidered. This was going to be a game trying to get information out of Cecil, and he wasn't sure if it was intentional, or just the way he communicated. He reordered his own thoughts and asked, "Alright. Nothing is nothing. What is nothing in this context?"

"In this context? The University. The University is nothing--but, listen, Carlos. You're  _ here _ , you're safe, and that's all that--"

"What."

Carlos moved into the room. He was trying to look intimidating, leaning on the table, staring straight into Cecil's eyes. He'd never looked intimidating for a day in his life, not once. He spoke low and measured and as menacingly as he could, "Did something happen to the University, Cecil?"

Cecil shook his head. "No.  _ Nothing _ happened. The--...the University vanished, Carlos."

He stared at Cecil, saying nothing for a long time. Carlos slowly pulled out his seat, opposite of Cecil, and sat down shakily. "The University  _ what _ ?"

"The University of What It Is, yes," Cecil replied, not realizing that wasn't the question immediately. He sat in silence, looking out of place in Carlos' kitchen, dressed like he was going somewhere fancy, with a bandanna tied over his third eye to hide it.

Carlos looked away from his face, and noticed the bandages that covered his hands. He decided at that moment that he didn't really want to ask.

At length, Cecil continued to speak, "Listen. I'm sure you can find a job somewhere else, there are plenty of places here to work, aren't there? Well. Okay. Maybe not. There aren't any other universities here. But you can find something to do somewhere else! It's not a complete loss. You're still a capable--what are you a professor of?"

"I'm a...chemistry professor," Carlos replied near-silently. He stared down at his own hands now.

"Well, I'm sure there are plenty of chemistry jobs," Cecil replied brightly. "I mean, it must have been  _ horrifying _ working in an educational setting, anyway. I know  _ I _ wouldn't want to be a teacher, oh no. Now you don't have to be! Isn't that wonderful?"

Carlos shook his head.

"You can be what you've always wanted to be, whatever that is. I'm guessing probably not a teacher, I mean,  _ nobody _ wants to be a--"

Here, Carlos held up a hand for silence, and he was half surprised that it even worked. Cecil cut off mid-sentence and watched him as he watched Cecil in return, again.

"What did you do to the University, Cecil?" His voice came out thick with accusation, more than he'd intended, and Cecil immediately looked hurt.

"I didn't do anything to the University," he replied. Different from his earlier insistence that nothing had happened; if he'd claimed to have done  _ nothing _ to the University, Carlos would have considered that an admission of guilt.

As it stood, he was denying his involvement.

"Then what happened to the University? Don't just say nothing. I know nothing happened, but nothing just doesn't happen like that. Why did nothing happen to the University?" Carlos was beginning to get used to using words in the same mixed up way that Cecil did. It made sense, in a sort of nonsensical way. Better than no way at all.

Cecil shrugged and began, "Well, Carlos, sometimes nothing just happens. It happens all the time, in fact. All over the world, nothing is probably happening, and one day, nothing will happen to all of us. We will wake up one day, and nothing will happen. It's just a part of life."

He boggled at Cecil's answer, and came back more accusatory than before: "You came here, Cecil. You came here, and two weeks later, nothing happens. How is that? Why does nothing happen and then you come here and--okay. You know what I mean."

"No, I'm afraid I don't."

Carlos scowled. "You came here and the University vanished. You came here and—and I  _ left _ today and—what did you do to me? Did you do that to me? Then the University vanished. And you apologized. You're  _ watching _ me. Cecil, what's going on?"

Cecil rose from his seat, and before he could move for the door, Carlos stood as well and stepped in his way. “Cecil. What's going on?” he repeated, trying to bar the other man's exit, although it didn't seem Cecil was trying too terribly hard to escape.

“I wanted to protect you, Carlos, I didn't want to lose you. Not when we've only just met,” he insisted. “I can... explain what happened, but you can't be angry if I explain it.”

As he moved closer, Carlos found himself shifting away, attempting to keep the space between them from closing. He bumped into the wall after only a couple of steps, really it was easy enough to corner someone in his cramped little apartment.

Cecil stopped, close enough that Carlos could feel his body heat, but he didn't touch Carlos. He hesitated, looking all at once quite uncertain and guilty.

“You're afraid of me.” It wasn't a question, but a fact.

Carlos swallowed back the lump in his throat and shook his head. “I-I'm curious. I'm not afraid. I don't understand, Cecil. What  _ are _ you?”

Immediately, he realized the words that had come out of his mouth, and Cecil realized just as quickly what had been said, but his expression hardly shifted. Carlos sputtered out an apology, and Cecil only shook his head, and for a moment he looked about ready to walk away, but he didn't.

Instead, he answered: “I've already told you that, lovely Carlos. I'm a radio host. They called me the Voice of Night Vale. I'm Cecil Palmer. You know who I am, I told you who I am.” 

“That wasn't my question, Cecil,” he argued.

Cecil sighed. “I know. I'm nobody, at least, nobody important.” He reached up in a gesture that almost seemed automatic, and brushed a strand of hair back from Carlos' face, watching him closely, and the tingle that he'd felt when they'd brushed past each other before was back, and stronger with Cecil's bare hand touching his face.

“Y-you're not answering my question, Cecil. You have three eyes. You came here, and things got  _ weird _ . You did something to me. What  _ are _ you?” His words spilled out like accusations, even in the form of a question. “What do you want with me, why are you  _ here _ , why can't I stop thinking about you? Like I literally can't stop, Cecil. I don't know why I can't stop.”

The hurt on Cecil's face warped into a strange little smile. “I can't stop thinking about you, either, beautiful Carlos.” He pulled back and finally allowed Carlos to move away from the wall again.

Carlos wanted to outlaw Cecil's compliments, but he just said nothing, instead.

“What you're feeling is my influence,” Cecil admitted at length. “And everyone feels that... different ways. Sometimes it's fear. I don't know if you're afraid of me, Carlos. Are you afraid of me?”

He was watching so closely, and he looked so worried about the answer that there was no way Carlos could say anything to hurt him. It just felt... wrong.

“I'm not afraid of you,” he insisted. “I want to understand. I just want to understand. You're—you're fascinating, Cecil. Who  _ are _ you? Why do you have an influence, actually, what is one? I've never heard that term used like that before. Why did nothing happen to the University? What  _ is _ nothing? What causes it?”

Cecil frowned at the stream of questions, brows furrowed. “Well, I can't answer all of that. Not easily. That's...a lot of questions, Carlos. I'm Cecil, you know who I am. I don't know how to explain everything that's happened. I barely understand nothing, myself.”

“Well, if the University vanished, then where did it vanish to? And what about the people, was there anybody there?” he asked.

The look on Cecil's face said it all, and before he even had a chance to speak, Carlos was advancing on him. “Did something happen to the people in the University, Cecil?” he demanded. “What happened to the people in the University? You made me leave, didn't you—you knew this was going to happen. How did you know?”

Cecil stumbled back, holding up his hands to try and stop Carlos from getting too close, but now it was his turn to find himself backed against the front of the refrigerator. Carlos didn't stop at cornering him, but grabbed a hold of Cecil and pinned him, and the touch was practically electric but Carlos wasn't thinking about that, or maybe he was thinking about that, but he wasn't thinking about how fascinating it was, he wasn't thinking about how it actually sort of felt right.

“What  _ are _ you, Cecil Palmer?” he asked once again.

“I can't... explain that,” Cecil muttered at length, which was essentially an admission that he wasn't quite so human as he halfway looked. “But that's not what I came here for, sweet Carlos. I don't want to explain myself. I want to help.”

Carlos scowled all through his explanation, but the last few words took him by surprise.

“You what?”

Cecil shut his eyes. “Please let go of me. You shouldn't be touching me for this long.” He didn't struggle, though. He wasn't trying to push Carlos away. In fact, the instruction sounded almost reluctant.

Releasing him, Carlos took a few steps back. “Why? What would happen if I kept touching you?”

“That's not important,” Cecil dismissed. “And that's not why I'm here, either. Now, I'm not normally supposed to interfere, since I'm a reporter and that's not my job, but... I thought since maybe, I don't have a job here yet, I might be able to help. Get the University back.”

Carlos watched the strange man for a moment, and as odd as everything had become, he felt nothing but confident that Cecil could do  _ something _ to fix whatever had gone wrong.

He had to.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slower update schedule, I know I was really on a roll there at first. I'll probably primarily be updating on weekends after all. It's a little more exciting now that strange things are finally happening, too.
> 
> Hope you all enjoy, and thanks for all the comments and kudos!


	7. Staying for Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rather than going to investigate the University, Cecil convinces Carlos that they should just talk, since it's so late at night anyway. So they talk, and some interesting topics come up.

  They stayed in the kitchen, talking while Carlos fried up grilled cheese for an effortless late-night meal, and Cecil spilled out his bloodstones in a roughly circular shape and tried to explain their ritual function to the scientist in words that would make sense. They had agreed that it was too dark, too late, and the disaster still too recent to go out and see the nothing where the University had once stood. All there was to do for the night was to talk, and Carlos wanted to know what was going on.

With everything, really.

Cecil explained as much as he understood, himself. He was running his fingers over the carved symbols on the reddish and green stones, arranging them more accurately as he went along.

“They don't work without blood activation, of course. As any actual sacrificial methods, a sacrifice is required. I don't know why this strikes so many people as surprising. Depending on the pattern of stones that you choose to activate, you can ask different things of the bloodstone circle in your chant. Get the combination wrong, and you can lose limbs, or worse.”

Carlos raised an eyebrow at the nonchalant comment, “Worse?” he asked, almost afraid to hear what was worse than losing body parts over messing up a circle of rocks.

“Well, when I was younger, I didn't know what I was doing. I don't remember who was praying at the circle with me. So that's... interesting.” He cleared his throat almost like punctuation, and switched topics again, “Once you've arranged the bloodstone circle, you can perform the ritual incision. I like to use my hands, personally, because I can control where the blood goes much more easily that way. But I've heard of people even using their forearms.”

Despite Carlos' cringing at the topic, Cecil continued cheerfully, “Once you offer your blood to the proper stones, then you can begin the prayer. Which I won't do right now. I have nothing to pray for, and it's a bad idea to use the bloodstones when you don't need them.”

He dared ask: “Why? What happens then?”

Cecil's expression grew suddenly very grave, and he said nothing in reply. Instead, he began to gather up the stones again, still as inert and harmless as ever, and return them to the silk pouch from whence they'd come. The whole act was done in silence; Carlos shifted uncomfortably and turned back to pay attention to his cooking once again. That was better than a staring contest, with whatever was probably going through Cecil's mind right now. He could still feel all three of Cecil's eyes fixated on him.

At length, he spoke and it seemed to be somewhat out of the blue, although Carlos realized he was answering the question on a considerable delay, “You don't use bloodstones unless you need them, Carlos. You never use them in vain. It offends them.”

“Oh.” He didn't bother asking what offending them meant. “What do you use them for, then?”

“Personally? I mostly use them to expand my influence. I know a lot of other people use them to ask for help, though,” he replied. “I mean, and that's good! They can help. They _do_ help. They help _so much_. I've used them to ask for help before. But I can help myself _better_.”

Carlos looked over, and Cecil was still holding onto the bag of stones, and his hands were bandaged as they had been since before, but he finally had the missing information to put two and two together and solve the reason why.

He looked away again.

“Did you use them today, on me?” he asked, facing toward the stove because he didn't want to see Cecil's expression, didn't want his apologetic frown, he just wanted the answer.

Surprisingly, Cecil answered the question in a pretty straightforward manner. “Yes. I did, Carlos. Because I knew nothing was going to happen. I wanted to make sure that you were safe. I could not have anticipated that it would react so... strongly. With you. I didn't want to make you ill. I only wanted to make you leave.”

Still looking away from Cecil, he asked, “If that wasn't what you wanted... what was it supposed to do to me? Isn't that sort of like... mind control, Cecil?”

“No. No, no, no, no,” Cecil answered quickly. “Not mind control. I can't control people's minds, Carlos. Oh, no, Carlos, I can't do _that_. It's what it sounds like, my influence. I can only make people do things if they _wanted_ to, anyway. That's how it works.”

Carlos looked over at him finally. “Then what did I want to do?”

Now that he was being watched, Cecil clammed up; Carlos realized that maybe, not looking was helpful for both of them. He managed to answer, “Talk to me, I hope.”

“No,” Carlos answered quickly, “I wanted to teach my class.”

“Oh.”

They stared at each other until Carlos realized he was burning the grilled cheese, and he turned off the stove and got to work setting up a plate for each of them, because serving dinner did not involve making eye contact with Cecil, did not involve acknowledging that he probably really _had_ wanted to talk to Cecil, did not involve acknowledging how much he was enjoying talking now.

Taking the time to serve dinner gave him the time he needed to organize his thoughts enough so that when he turned and laid the plates on the table, he wasn't looking embarrassed anymore. He wasn't even self-conscious when he sat down across from Cecil, not at all.

“So,” he asked, “If you knew what was going to happen, why just influence _me_? Why not tell the rest of the University? Everybody could have evacuated, Cecil.”

The question rendered Cecil silent. He guiltily stared down at his slightly burnt grilled cheese sandwich, and didn't say anything for a length of time.

Carlos took a bite of his own dinner and burned his tongue. As usual.

“I can't influence that many people at once. I mean—I can. Of course I can. But I can't do it without... more help than my bloodstones can give me. It isn't easy influencing a town on my own.”

Carlos boggled at that answer and suggested instead, “Just tell people. You don't have to use _mind control_ to make people listen to you, Cecil—just tell them something bad is going to happen.”

Frowning, Cecil muttered, “Oh, naïve Carlos. I can't just do that. Nobody would believe me, if I came into the University and said that everything was going to vanish. They only would have thought that there was something wrong with me, and never would have listened. Would _you_ have left the building with me, if I came in telling you that nothing was going to happen?”

“Oh, I. I guess not,” Carlos admitted.

Silence took over the room, and the two of them refused to make eye contact. The longer Carlos spent speaking with the newcomer, the more he realized that he was perhaps the first person who had tried to do so with an open mind. Even still, everything didn't always line up, and it wasn't always very believable. How could he just accept that a bunch of rocks could be offended?

Well, how could he explain the feeling he got when he and Cecil came close enough to touch?

Carlos found himself peeking over at Cecil after he'd finished eating, trying to get a good look at him without being noticed. If he could keep from staring at that extra eye too long, Cecil wasn't actually that bad looking. Maybe even a little cute. Okay, he was pretty cute. He also looked like he hadn't been sleeping, exhaustion or maybe just stress marked his face.

He also wasn't eating. He was staring down at the cooling sandwich on his plate, and hadn't even touched it. Maybe it was too burnt. Maybe he couldn't have cheese. Carlos went through several possibilities before he decided just to ask.

“Cecil, is something wrong?”

“Is... this safe?” he asked, still staring at his dinner for a moment before he looked over to see if Carlos had eaten his. “There was an outlaw on wheat and wheat by-products back... back home.”

Carlos paused, and remembered Cecil staring at the loaves of bread in the grocery store. “Oh.” He cracked a small smile, “You don't have to worry, there's no wheat in it. I'm sensitive to it, too.”

Instantly, Cecil seemed to relax, and he picked up the grilled cheese sandwich and looked it over for a moment before he took a bite. Once he'd proven to himself that dinner was safe, he seemed to take great joy in eating Carlos' half-burnt cooking. He even complimented the chef.

“Oh, no, come on,” Carlos laughed. “I burnt it. I mean, _you_ distracted me, but I still burnt it.”

“Then your cooking must be even better without a distraction,” Cecil insisted.

Carlos shook his head but said nothing, and waited for Cecil to finish his grilled cheese, using the excuse of washing dishes to justify looking away again. With Cecil distracting him, he couldn't just not cook, he wasn't focused nearly enough on...what were they supposed to be doing right now?

Discussing the University.

Cecil tried to insist that he would wash the dishes, but Carlos refused to let him--"Your hands are bandaged, you can't wash dishes."--and did it himself, staring a hole into the wall in quiet embarrassment because he knew that Cecil was still watching him from behind.

"Are you still um, influencing me?" he asked without looking over, so he didn't see the small smirk that tugged at the corner of Cecil's mouth, he only heard the denial.

"I influenced you earlier, and it made you sick," he pointed out. "I'm doing nothing."

Carlos laughed a bit, nervous, "That's. I don't know, are you sure? Because I still feel a little..." and here, he trailed off, unsure of how he really felt. Distracted was a good word. Curious? Was captivated a little too strong?

Before he knew what was happening, Cecil was directly behind him; he was amazed by how quickly and silently that man could move across a room, and he felt Cecil's hands on his shoulders before he even realized what was going on, and the tingle that passed through from Cecil's fingertips.

"Do you _like_ me, Carlos?" he asked, like a giddy child.

Carlos couldn't help the fact that he jumped when Cecil touched him, though he tried to pretend it hadn't happened and turned himself around as calmly as he could to face Cecil. Who looked as much like an excited child as he had sounded. Carlos wasn't sure he understood how somebody could talk so calmly about places vanishing off the face of the earth, and cutting themselves for bloody rituals, and then turn around and ask Carlos if he liked him, like a child in middle school trying to flirt.

It was more endearing than it should have been. Carlos let himself crack a smile and replied, "Well, you're _very_ scientifically interesting, Cecil."

Cecil whined as Carlos turned back around to finish rinsing their plates, and Carlos was as nonchalant as he possibly could be.

"But do you _like_ me?" Cecil tried a second time.

His second reply was no more conclusive, "I think we need to talk about the University. That's what you stayed here for, isn't it?"

Carlos dried the plates and put them away, and Cecil trailed him to the other end of the kitchen and bumped into him when Carlos stepped back from the cabinet again. He apologized and took a few steps back, but Carlos was too amused already that his guest was following him around like a lost little duckling. Okay, so it was probably _way_ more endearing than it should have been.

"Can I help you?" he asked, trying to keep a straight face.

Cecil asked him quietly, "But do you think I'm _cute_?"

Immediately, he switched back to the earlier topic, "We should talk about the University. Or, if you don't want to talk about that. Maybe we can talk about you after all."

"About me...?"

Carlos nodded, and he tried to press at the same questions he'd been asking before, "Why do you have three eyes, Cecil? What is the third one even for?"

Cecil's expression sank and he muttered, "I just do. I just have them, Carlos."

"Don't you...know why?" he asked, frowning now too. The way Cecil kept refusing to answer certain things, maybe he'd ignored the possibility that Cecil himself didn't even know all the answers.

This possibility was confirmed when Cecil agreed that he didn't know. "I don't know where it came from. I can see things with it, but I don't know why."

"Things." Carlos said the word like it was foreign.

Cecil nodded. "Yes, um. Well, a lot of nothing really."

Carlos was quiet for several moments, trying to decide what sort of nothing he thought Cecil meant, but he had to consider: Cecil told him that the eye wasn't blind. "So is that how you knew the University was going to vanish?"

Again, Cecil nodded, and then they were both silent. It was Cecil's ringing cell phone that finally broke the tension, and he walked into the living room to answer it after excusing himself. Carlos sat back down at the kitchen table and tried to think things through.

The University was gone, it had vanished away into nothing, and Cecil could see into nothing. He had three eyes, he prayed with magical rocks, and apparently other people prayed to something with the magic rocks, but Cecil practically sounded like he was praying to himself.

Improve his influence. The influence that Carlos wasn't sure he wasn't under, even now.

He overheard vaguely that Cecil wasn't speaking in any language he'd ever heard before, and he thought there had to be some explanation, there had to be something going on. Did Cecil knew? Was he just lying in saying he didn't?

There was no way to know, but he had to figure it out before he let himself fall any deeper into this whole mess. Alright. So that was probably pointless.

He was already in too deep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone who's been reading, commenting, and giving me kudos! You're all great and you're encouraging me to keep going haha.
> 
> I'm getting really into crunch time with my schooling, so updates may be slow but I'll keep cranking them out as well as I can.
> 
> thanks again!


	8. The Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil and Carlos go to see where the University used to be, and Cecil avoids answering a lot of questions. They stare into the Void and it doesn't really stare back, because it's a void, and voids don't seem to have eyes but they apparently have mouths.

When Cecil had to leave for the night (not because it was too late, but because of something to do with the phone call), Carlos had to say goodbye quickly so he wouldn't drag it out too long. He was already feeling a little guilty how distracted Cecil had him about the whole catastrophe that had actually happened; why wasn't he thinking more about the vanished school? Why wasn't he more worried about his colleagues and students?

Could he really trust so fully that Cecil was going to help him set it straight?

Alone in his apartment again, Carlos didn't go to bed as early as he should have. Instead, he spent a while staring at his phone, and all the contacts who he thought were probably in the University, wherever it had vanished off to. And maybe a bit of considering texting Cecil to ask if he couldn't sleep, either. But he resisted that urge.

In the morning, he woke up bright and early because he always did, whether he'd really slept more than a few hours the night before or not. Carlos was partially through his morning routine, burning eggs and trying to get dressed, when he recalled that there was no University to report to, today.

He sunk down on his bed and sat there for several minutes before the smell of smoke brought him out to the kitchen. He shut off the stove. He didn't bother trying to salvage his breakfast, the smell of it sent him gagging into the bathroom, to heave over the toilet until he was sure he wasn't actually going to puke.

Carlos shook as he stared at himself in the bathroom mirror and tried to remind himself that he existed; the surreal sense of nothingness he'd felt all the day before had subsided. He wasn't nonchalant, now. He didn't laugh off the vanishing of the University with the confidence of somebody who expected that everything would be sorted out very soon.

It was still so early in the morning, and he thought for a moment that he wasn't sure what time Cecil woke up as, but that didn't matter when he dialed the other man's number. Because this was somehow tied to Cecil, and if he could get his hands to stop shaking long enough to call Cecil in the first place, than he owed it to Carlos to explain, and to sort out what happened.

Why had he left so quickly, the night before? It was something of a haze, Carlos hadn't heard any real explanations. Some Station Management had called, but Cecil didn't work for them anymore and what right did anybody have to call him away when Carlos needed to ask him questions?

Cecil picked up with a groggy, "Good morning...?" He didn't sound much like a morning person.

Now that he'd answered the phone, Carlos wasn't sure what he'd intended to ask in the first place, or had he wanted to accuse Cecil of something? That was a haze as much as anything.

He managed to stammer out, "W-we need to go to the University, Cecil." It wasn't a calm instruction, and it didn't command respect so much as nervously ask for pity.

"Carlos? Are you alright...?" He was still waking up, but Cecil was a little more alert, recognizing something very wrong on Carlos' voice.

"We need to go. To the University. We need to f-fix whatever happened," he insisted. "I'm serious, Cecil. We need to h-help them."

Cecil hesitated. "I don't know if we can, Carlos. I'm so sorry, but I don't know how to undo nothing, like that. I don't--"

He didn't give Cecil the chance to finish, "You promised! You said you'd help!" His voice was cracking, it was way too high-pitched and he could've outed himself, but maybe Cecil wasn't so much paying attention to his slip-up so much as his yelling. "We can't just leave everything v-vanished, Cecil!"

"I know, I know!" Cecil tried to break into his stream of accusations, "It isn't fair, Carlos, it isn't fair and it isn't fun and it isn't  _ safe _ . It isn't safe to try and get the University back, where it's gone to."

Carlos fumed quietly for a moment before he realized something.

"Where it's  _ gone to _ ? Where did it go? I thought you said it vanished, Cecil!"

Caught in his own slip-up, Cecil quickly tried to divert, "Listen. We can meet up, by the University. But don't step onto the campus. You will know why, when you get there. Do  _ not _ go onto the University campus. Do  _ not _ attempt to investigate until I am there."

"But, Cecil, where did it  _ go _ ?" Carlos asked again, only to be hung up on.

He could only assume that he'd been given orders to go to the University, and so he would do just that. He finished dressing himself for the day--something comfortable, something with a lab coat over it like every other outfit--brushed his teeth, didn't check his emails, didn't eat the cremated remains of his fried eggs. He brought his laptop and his phone in his bag, and left for the bus.

The trip to the University couldn't have possibly taken longer, it felt like, even though he checked his phone enough times to know that time was still passing at the same rate as ever. It just didn't feel quite right anymore, but time could be weird like that sometimes.

Arriving at his destination, Carlos wasn't met with an empty foundation, like he'd theorized before getting there. He didn't see the empty campus with holes where buildings had been. The campus itself was apparently gone, up to the sidewalk, engulfed in nothingness. A black hole, gaping in the earth, absorbing light and thought and all of Carlos' attention until Cecil pulled him back from the edge of it with a stern scolding.

"I told you not to go too close, Carlos. Somebody needs to put up a fence. With no trespassing signs. What's somewhere nobody would go? Do people own dogs around here? Maybe a--I'm getting ahead of myself. Of course. Not every town needs a dog park."

Whatever the hell he was talking about, Carlos was hardly listening. He'd looked up at Cecil's face after being pulled away from the endless abyss where the University had once stood, and uneasily felt like the void was staring back down at him from Cecil's third eye, was it black? Was it purple? Did it honestly change color and that was why he couldn't pin it down?

"Carlos. Carlos, are you listening to me?" His own name brought him to attention, and he was laid out on a park bench and he didn't remember getting there but oh god, his head was in Cecil's lap, why was his head in Cecil's lap?

"What...happened?" he asked, staring up at Cecil's face. He'd thought to cover up his third eye, he'd brought a bandana, why did he have to cover it up? Carlos waited for his thoughts to clear.

"I guess I made you weak at the knees," Cecil quipped, and tried to crack a smile, but he had to be serious again after that. "Barely any time has passed. How long were you staring into the Void before I got here? That's dangerous, you know. Its influence. People can jump in, and never return."

Not really thinking, he murmured, "Influence again. Who knew everything has influence and wants to kill us."

Cecil gave pause. "That's... hardly fair of you to say that, Carlos. I don't think the Void wants to kill anybody. I think you're putting words in its mouth."

Carlos snorted. "The Void has a mouth?"

Here, Cecil's reply was a little more muttered and unclear, it sounded something like: "Well I guess it has a Voice, so it must have..." and trailed off into silence. Carlos realized he was still laying in Cecil's lap, and sat himself back up to finally see where they'd gone.

They hadn't made it very far from the University grounds; the Void was still sitting there across the street, looking strange and strangely inviting and the size of the entire campus. Carlos looked away from it more quickly this time; he thought he was starting to get good at recognizing when something was trying to make him stare.

The only alternative was staring at Cecil, who had gone uncharacteristically silent and remained so, with a thoughtful look on his face, until Carlos spoke to him again first.

"So where is the Void, Cecil? If they all went to the Void, and how do we get them back?"

Cecil came around after a moment, blinking as if clearing his thoughts, and he laughed. "What? No, Carlos, that's an odd suggestion. They didn't go to the Void. The Void isn't a place, it's a nothing. It's the biggest nothing. They went--umm, somewhere else."

He frowned, brows furrowed. "Somewhere else? Why is the Void here, Cecil? If they went somewhere else. Where did they _go_ , if not...nowhere?"

"Oh, they went nowhere," he corrected. "I never said they didn't go nowhere. I just said--look. The Void and the desert are really sort of, you know, _connected_. They didn't go to the Void, because they went to the desert, the Void is just here. Because it, well, it does that. It... goes places where there is nothing. Just because it's there doesn't mean that people went to the Void at all! Although, I think...some people have probably gone to the Void. Can we do something about putting a fence up? I really think it could use a fence, I mean, maybe some barbed wire, or--"

"Cecil." He had to interrupt. "We're in the desert. What do you mean they're in the desert?"

He shrugged. "We're in a desert, yes. Not much of a desert. It was really more of a desert back in Night Vale, this is more of--right. Right. Not quite a desert, but that's not the point. We're in _a_ desert. They're in _the_ desert."

Carlos' frown deepened, "Is everything some weird special word distinction now?"

"I'm sorry," Cecil replied automatically. "I think it just... helps. Then I can know what I'm talking about, and you can know what I'm talking about, too. But really, can we find somebody who can put up a fence around the Void? It's too exposed, it's not _safe_. People could walk in, people probably have already walked in, and they're going to just turn up there, in the Void, or in the desert, I don't know what really decides who goes to which? I think there must be some decision, something must be deciding. Or someone. Or multiple someones. Or maybe it's just random, I mean, who knows, right?"

For a moment, Carlos watched him in silence, letting Cecil finish rambling. He was nervous, that was something Carlos was starting to realize. For some reason, Cecil was incredibly nervous, and when he got nervous, he could do nothing to stop himself from talking.

He hoped that maybe Cecil would talk enough that he'd give away something important.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Cecil. And I mean, I _really_ don't. Where is the desert?"

Cecil replied ambiguously: "Nowhere."

He asked: "Where is the Void?"

Predictably, Cecil replied the same: "Nowhere."

Now, he thought maybe he had Cecil trapped into explaining something. "How are both the desert and the Void nowhere? Didn't you just say they weren't the same thing?"

"They aren't," he answered. "The... the desert is like a light. An endless light, it bleaches out everything, it... never goes to sleep. It's awake, right now. Shining. The Void is not a light."

Carlos tried to ask him what the Void was, and after he deflected with the typical response of "nothing," he attempted more seriously to change the topic.

"I don't believe the University is in the Void. I think that I would know, if it was. I thought, last night--I thought it may have been. Where the University is, I believe, is in the desert. And if this is the case, everyone who was there may be lost. I mean, I lost an intern in the desert once, and she _did_ come back, but it took like, a year? So I mean. They might come back? I mean, some of them might come back. I don't know. Have you tried texting anybody? I know they get great reception in the desert."

"I...they... what?" Carlos pulled out his phone to look at it in wonder.

He unlocked the screen, and every port on the phone began to leak seawater. Carlos yelped and gave it a toss, and it landed on the sidewalk, screen staring up into the sky, a puddle slowly forming around it. All he could do was stare accusingly in Cecil's direction, because he had _never_ seen a phone do anything out of the ordinary until Cecil had gotten there.

Cecil recognized the accusation in the stare and turned purple with embarrassment. "I'm sorry. You're right. That's probably my fault. On the bright side, your phone is probably okay? Mine bleeds all the time, and the screen fell off once, but it grew a new one in a week. So I mean, if you take care of--"

Carlos held up a hand for his silence, and Cecil went dutifully silent.

"Please stop babbling. You're nervous. I get it, I'm nervous _all_ the time."

He let out a quiet laugh, "What? But you're so _suave_ , Carlos."

"I... ...what?" Carlos stared at him like he was really more of a stranger now than ever, just from that comment alone. But he was also maybe studying the interesting hue of purple that Cecil had turned, that wasn't fading very quickly as he was so consciously aware that he was being stared at. Carlos was, of course, only flustering him further.

Cecil tried once more to change the topic, as he'd tried with any topic that had come up, "Listen, I can call up--I mean, I know somebody who was in the desert, and she got out _fine_ , and I can call her and ask her how she did it? She used to be an intern of mine, and now she's the Mayor of Night Vale." It was hard not to notice the pride in his voice when he mentioned this.

"Call her. Ask her... how to get everyone back, then," Carlos agreed. He went back to watching his phone, where it continued to ooze seawater onto the sidewalk that was now streaming down into the street and toward the open sewer grate. He wondered if his phone was going to be damaged worse from the water, or from throwing it. Or maybe, as Cecil had suggested, if it might just grow back from any damage that it received.

In the meantime, Cecil had dug out his own phone and was struggling with the unlock. Carlos noticed something: before he was able to unlock the phone, Cecil had to prick his own finger with a pin, some sort of blood offering thing. He figured everything in Night Vale needed blood offerings.

Still, it was creepy to know that Cecil kept a pin in the flip-open case around his phone.

He began dialing, and Carlos watched in anticipation, waiting to see what sort of person was going to pick up on the other end, if he would be able to convince Cecil to let him talk to them at all, or if they would even speak English, or maybe whatever Cecil was speaking with Station Management, the night before. Anything was possible, at this point, and he considered it as such.

The phone rang just once before it went into an answering machine, and he could only half hear it, but the voice sounded feminine and pretty much normal. Cecil put it on speakerphone once he realized Carlos was leaning in to listen.

"Hi, you've reached the voicemail of Mayor Dana Cardinal. This is my personal phone, so I guess we're probably friends? If you're a member of the Sheriff's Secret Police, please call my business phone. If you want to talk about overthrowing me, please call the Sheriff's Secret Police. If this is Cecil calling, please don't leave me anymore voicemails in void tongues again, I _told_ you I don't understand them."

Cecil giggled nervously.

The message finished up, "And if this is somebody else, I don't know what you're calling about, but leave me a message and I'll get back to you. Thanks!"

After the tone, Cecil cleared his throat and spoke a message for her:

"Hey, Dana! I haven't talked to you since... oh, well since a while ago, anyway. I hope you're doing well--I hope Night Vale is doing well. Without me. I hope you're _all_ doing well. Listen. I had an important question for you? About the dog park. And the desert otherworld. And, you know, all that time you spent there? And maybe, how did you get back out? Call back when you have time, I feel like we have so much to talk about, things are so _weird_ here. I sort of miss Night Vale sometimes, we should catch up--but really. I need to know about the desert? So call me back as soon as you can. Thanks!"

He finished the message and hung up, and Carlos stared at him for a few moments after.

"Do you really think it's weird _here_?" he asked. "It sounds like Night Vale must be weirder."

Cecil shrugged, and he was about to say something, when Carlos' phone rang from where it sat on the sidewalk, still bubbling with seawater. They both looked over at it, but Cecil was the first to walk over and pick it up. The screen wasn't damaged at all from the fall or from the water.

He held the phone out to Carlos. "Do you know somebody named Avery?"

Carlos made a grab for the phone, and answered as quick as he had it in his hands.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew, got through another chapter. I'm trying to resist the urge to dive into what's going on too quickly for it to make sense. but hey, have some desert otherworld and void theories. I also updated the tags.
> 
> coming up in future chapters:  
> -Avery actually gets to say more than a few words  
> -Dana returns a phonecall  
> -Cecil says some weird things that nobody can comprehend  
> -two big nerds probably eventually kiss or something and break the tension already
> 
> maybe not in that particular order.
> 
> anyway, thank you all for reading/commenting/etc. you're all awesome!!


	9. Into the Desert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> News finally arrives from the desert, much to the relief of Carlos. Criticism arrives from the newly misplaced University of What It Is, much to the frustration of Cecil.

Avery wondered already at how oddly the day was beginning, when Carlos couldn't keep his words from trailing off, couldn't keep a single train of thought for long enough to lecture. Watching him there, so obviously distracted and confused in front of his students, it was almost a relief when his phone rang and Avery had an excuse to take over at the podium.

After Carlos fled the room, they stepped up and cleared their throat and started lecturing for about five minutes before somebody interrupted, not thinking it so serious of a crime to interrupt a TA as a real professor: "What's up with the professor, man?

They shrugged and leaned against the podium, peering out toward the hallway. "That really isn't the uh, subject of this class, unfortunately. If you've got inquiries for Dr. C on personal matters, I'd say go ask him on your own time."

"Well _I_ heard someone saw him with the stranger," a girl toward the back remarked.

A murmur swelled and died away as Avery cleared their throat again and asked for silence. "We aren't here talking about rumors, guys. Now, if there are any questions anyone's got for me about nucleic acids...? No? Then I'll continue the lecture."

They didn't have the trouble Carlos was having with keeping on-topic, themselves, but even trying to continue in an organized manner, only found that the rest of the class wasn't interested in following along anymore. Somebody in the back was passing a note, two toward the front were texting, a couple were clearly having a conversation.

Earlier than the usual break, Avery released the class to go relieve the urge to chatter. This was already not going well, they'd never really had to teach the class before, and maybe knew how to do it in theory, but in practice was an entirely different story.

Out in the hallway, Carlos hadn't moved very far from the room. There he was, sitting and staring at his phone and looking very, very wrong, and he couldn't quite tell why. Their professor was a million miles away, with a lost look on his face.

Avery spoke as calmly as they could muster, "Dr. C, _what_ going on?"

He looked up at Avery, eyes crossed behind his glasses and barely able to focus on anything for the time being. All he could get out was a simple, "I don't know."

Frowning, Avery tried to check his temperature, only to be shoved back. They asked if they needed to call an ambulance; he refused the offer, claimed he was probably getting sick, but he just had to go home. That was what he had to do, just go home. He rambled for a moment before trailing off.

Avery looked back toward the classroom, knowing most of the students were still in there, talking about whatever rumor had caught their interest. "Do what you've got to, Dr. C," they sighed. "You want me to grab your bag?"

At Carlos' agreement, they hurried back into the room and tried not to make a big deal of the fact they were taking his bag out to him, ignore the increased excitement of one particular gossip insisting that Carlos had been cursed by the stranger.

They handed the bag over, and Carlos took it and left.

With nobody left to report to, and the class increasingly in disorder, Avery dismissed the whole lot of them within the next twenty minutes and gave up. Where they went to after that, who knew. Avery reported to Dr. Kayali's office, to ask if she knew if anything was going on with Carlos.

Initially, she hesitated to say anything, but once Avery revealed that it had been somebody calling Carlos which had driven him away, she was too intrigued to lie anymore.

"A call, you said? Did anything...odd happen with his phone?" she asked.

Avery shrugged. "It...rang and he went and answered it?"

"Do you know who it was that may have been calling him?"

All they could do was admit that they didn't; what followed was Dr. Kayali's recap of her meeting with Carlos. How they'd talked about the stranger, how he had admitted to knowing not only the name, but the phone number of the stranger as well.

"So you think...that was who was calling him?" Avery asked.

Before she could agree or disagree, the door to her office was thrown open, and there was biology professor Rachelle Baker, still in a labcoat with dissection implements in her pocket, and a panicked look on her face. "Sylvia?"

Dr. Kayali frowned. "Yes? Is something the matter?"

"Dave just texted me that everything vanished, and I didn't believe him, so I went outside--and _everything vanished_. It's gone! All of it!" Her explanation spilled out frantically, she was gesticulating with a scalpel and Avery fell out of their chair trying to avoid the blade.

Dr. Kayali was unphased. "Professor Baker, calm _down_ , this is a professional environment. Now. Explain to me, calmly if you will, what you're even talking about?"

She ignored her supervisor's demand for a calm explanation, and instead strolled over to the window in the back of her office and pulled open the curtains. The carefully controlled atmosphere of dim interior lighting was broken up instantly by a flash of bright, bright white, like the sun itself smiling down on them from inches away.

"Professor Baker!" she scolded.

Gradually, their eyes adjusted as Rachelle held the curtains open and let the light in. Avery made their way over to the window first, and there was nothing out there. Just sand. Endless sand, and a bright burning sun that they thought was brighter than it had ever been.

"Oh my god."

Dr. Kayali rose from her seat to get a look, and her brows furrowed in consternation at the sight, so irrational and impossible and... clearly, somehow there.

She made her way for the door, "Come. We're going outside to see what's the matter."

Rachelle followed after her, and because they were both going, Avery felt obligated not to run away and let them do it alone. They didn't have to go too far to find the nearest exit, anyway, and when they stepped outside, their peek at the desert had proven just as accurate as anything.

Several students had already made their way out and were standing on the broken up remains of the walkway, staring out into the desert where the vague outlines of the campus ended. Every building was still there, and the landscaping was somewhat in-tact, but as for the rest of town?

Gone.

Because they were scientists, the lot of them, and were going to come at it professionally and not freak out, they were completely calm about the revelation. If they hadn't been calm, it's not like anyone would have found out anyway, because they agreed, and anyone else who joined the investigation later also agreed, there was a pact that nobody would be laughed at for freaking out. Internally, they were all freaking out. They just didn't freak out externally, because they were scientists.

After several hours of not panicking and running all over campus, anyone with enough of a mind for science had grouped themselves together in one of Dr. Kayali's physics classrooms. Any professor in and of the the science departments was present; several students heard news and showed up as well. Avery shifted nervously where they sat and watched the professors debate.

(They heard that the art and theater departments had barricaded themselves into a painting studio to sacrifice tubes of expensive oil paint to obscure gods that somebody had read about, once.)

"I think that it's our duty as scientists to remain level-headed and approach this from a scientific standpoint," Dr. Kayali was explaining. "We each have our talents, we can work together to sort out what has happened, and where the rest of the town has gone."

(Less was known about the philosophy department. Rachelle commented that they'd finally achieved proof that the world was but an illusion, and in their wild celebrations had simply vanished.)

Dave Crewe, geology professor, spoke up nervously, "This isn't anything like a science experiment though, Sylvia. We're scientists, yes, but this is. This is not like science, this is more like some... p-post-apocalypse, horrible punishment, I don't know!"

"Get a hold of yourself, Dave," Dr. Kayali spat.

(Somebody from the theology department had walked in while the group was still assembling. He'd slung accusations, said that everyone was burning in hell for the sins of evolution. It turned out he wasn't actually a student, and the real theology department was huddled in the library, reading religious texts for meaning.)

"He has a point though," Rachelle muttered, "This isn't something that our jobs have prepared us for. I mean, unless there's something biological out there, what good can I do?"

(The nutrition department was actively at work devising a way to make the food on campus last as long as possible. Real productive go-getters, those guys.)

"I don't care if you're a biologist, Rachelle," Dr. Kayali insisted. "It doesn't matter if I'm a physicist. It doesn't matter if half the people in this room are students. We are all here, we are all in this mess, and the more of us can keep a level head, the more likely we will sort this out."

(The psychology department had simply gone mad.)

"So what are we s-supposed to do, Sylvia?" Dave argued. "Go out and analyze the sand? T-take measurements of the distance from here to the end of nowhere?? What are we going to do?"

"We're going to _calm down_ , professor Crewe. We're going to calm down and we're going to handle this professionally and we will _find_ hypotheses to test, there will be _something_ that will answer for us what's happened." Dr. Kayali had no time for this paranoia.

"Oh, sure, we've just got all these hypotheses lying around to test!"

"Well we'd better, if we want out of this."

Avery fiddled with their phone while the argument waged on, everyone else in the room dutifully silent as Dave panicked and his supervisor refused to lose her cool. Oddly enough, the reception on campus hadn't gone away, but Avery had attributed that to a glitch until they opened their email. Some automated mailer, courtesy of signing a petition two years ago, popped into their mailbox to accuse them of having no heart if they didn't pledge to save the whales.

(They opened the email, something they'd never do normally, but it was necessary to see if anything had actually gotten through.)

Dave continued to be beside himself, "And if we don't, then we don't want out? Is that what you're s-saying, Sylvia? If we don't have hypotheses, we just don't want it bad enough?"

"No, that's not what I'm--"

Avery interrupted, loudly as they could, "Hey. Has anybody tried to use their phones?"

Silence washed over the room. Somehow, in all of their panicking and theories, not a single scientist had thought of the simplest hypothesis to test: see if their phones still worked.

Dr. Kayali was the first to respond, "Somebody, call Carlos." She had a feeling that if he was anywhere, and hadn't simply vanished, then wherever he was, he was with the stranger.

Avery nodded, dialed Carlos' number, and pushed call.

* * *

"And that's about where we are right now," they concluded.

Carlos and Cecil had sat back down on the bench to listen to the explanation on speakerphone. Nodding along, or exchanging glances, or whatever.

"Wait, everyone's there?" Carlos asked after the moments it took him to realize.

Avery answered, "Yes. You're on speakerphone, actually. Say hi."

Carlos said hi.

Dr. Kayali was the next to speak, probably wrenching the phone from Avery so she could do so, "Professor, tell me, are you alone right now?" she asked. "Where are you, what does it look like where you are currently?"

Cecil shook his head and Carlos replied, "I'm outside campus? Well, sort of? There's nothing there, actually. So I'm outside of nothing."

"What do you mean, nothing?" she asked.

Carlos caught himself saying, "You know, nothing," before he realized that she didn't know, she hadn't been there for the conversation before, "It's a uh, a Void. There's a big black hole. It looks like--well, you sort of look at it, and it's like there's nothing to look at?"

"A black hole?" Dr. Kayali sounded doubtful.

He corrected her, "A Void, I think that's what it's called. The Void. Something like that."

A long, long silence followed, punctuated by murmurs from the other line that neither Carlos nor Cecil could make out as the group discussed amongst itself. They said nothing, not wanting to break into the conversation, if something important was going on.

Dr. Kayali spoke again, accusing. "Are you alone, Carlos? Or is he with you?"

Carlos swallowed a lump in his throat and tried to speak, but Cecil beat him to the punch.

"I believe you mean me, professor Kayali?"

She replied with venom, "That's _Doctor_ Kayali to you, outsider."

Cecil maintained his cool facade, and Carlos couldn't help but feel a little bit impressed. "Of course, my apologies Dr. Kayali. Now, correct me if this is wrong, but none of us can shake the deep-seated existential dread in our hearts when we stare into the Void. And I can't shake the feeling that you're accusing me of doing something to you. Now, that would be rather interesting, wouldn't it? If either of those were true, who knows what that might mean?"

A remark came from the background, Rachelle's voice, "Does he just talk to hear himself talk?"

"No. Why would I need to listen to my own voice? I talk so that others can hear me," Cecil remarked. "I would like it if perhaps you heard me out, as well. Do you think you might be able to?"

Dr. Kayali hesitantly muttered a quiet little, "I guess I don't see why not," and Carlos shot a look of absolute frustration at his companion, mouthing words at him to make him quit it.

He quirked an eyebrow at Carlos and kept talking, "Dr. Kayali. Sylvia. Can I call you Sylvia? I don't think it's very scientific of you to judge someone who you haven't met. Do you even know my name? I hardly expect that you do." He chuckled. "They called me the Voice of Night Vale, back home, I wasn't much, just a radio announcer, and certainly no scientist. Still. I think I'm respectable enough for you, wouldn't you agree, Sylvia?"

Carlos wrenched the phone away from him again. "I'm sorry. He really does just like to hear himself talk, I'm pretty sure." He was glad that nobody on the other side could see him shooting daggers at Cecil with his eyes.

Dr. Kayali sounded a little bit lost as she replied, "That's okay. Why are you, um..."

"We should probably go. Listen. We're trying to figure out what's going on." Carlos emphasized the _we_ , and hoped Cecil was really going to help. "Cecil knows more about the um, Void than us, I think. And the desert. Wherever it is you guys are. So we're going to figure this out."

Cecil was making faces at Carlos as he spoke, and making it hard to keep from responding.

Avery answered on the other line, presumably as their phone was handed back to them, "Wait, how do we know we're going to be able to get in touch again?"

"Oh, your battery and reception should be stellar," Cecil remarked. "I lost an intern in the desert, once. Her phone lasted the whole while! Don't worry."

Carlos sighed, "Yes. Don't worry. We're going to get you out of there. I promise--we. We both promise, we're getting you guys all back home." He didn't have the heart to say that Cecil had already promised quite the opposite, that it was going to be difficult to see any of them coming back home.

Once he managed to get Avery to hang up, he pocketed his phone again, giving Cecil a dirty look. The radio host just laughed and put on his most innocent smile, "What?"

"You know what, Cecil. Is that what it looks like? When you're influencing somebody?" He rose from his seat on the bench, and put a bit of space between himself and Cecil.

Cecil was still smiling, though it had taken on a different character, a little more knowing and not particularly apologetic for it. "I could easily argue that it was necessary, Carlos. When your colleagues are going to call us up and sling accusations at me. I may be used to criticism, but that won't help anyone, neither them nor us."

"So you just--you just _brainwash_ people so they like you better? Is that what you've done to _me_ , too?" Carlos backed away further.

Rising from the bench to pursue Carlos, Cecil continued down the same self-destructive warpath, no apologies, nothing; he was a little too proud of what he'd done. "Why, do you like me that much better, Carlos? Oh, is _this_ how you tell me?"

Carlos stumbled backwards into the street and fell flat on his ass, and when Cecil offered to help him up, he slapped the other man's hands away. "Don't touch me. Who ever taught you how to talk to people?? You don't just go mind controlling everyone until they like you, Cecil!"

He snapped back at Carlos with surprising ferocity, "Oh, naive Carlos, you act like I'm indoctrinating people into some bizarre attitude like, oh, _destroy the interloper_? Throw the newcomer out on the streets, jobless and homeless, and accuse him of bringing the Void on everyone? I don't _control_ the Void, Carlos. I'm harming _nothing_ by simply asking people to like me."

"That's still brainwashing!" Carlos insisted.

Cecil stared down at him, and finally reached out and grabbed his arm to tug him to his feet, whether he wanted the help up or not. Carlos pulled away, and for several long moments, they stared at each other, each waiting for the other to speak first.

When it didn't come, Cecil turned to leave, and for a good half a block, Carlos did nothing about it. He watched in silence, waiting, waiting, and then he took off after Cecil and called after him to stop.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> today was an unusual day, in that I didn't really have a lot of classwork to worry about. I was feeling energized about writing some of the other characters. I decided to use names of some of the fellow scientists in the podcast to fill in the names of some professors, I don't really have much of a characterization in mind for them that came from the show, so if there was something that I've gotten wrong because I missed the description, let me know?
> 
> my chapter divides have become a lot less "distinct scene ending" and more "literally just cuts off in the middle of a cliffhanger because 3k is a lot for a single chapter and I'm not going to go for double that."
> 
> as always, thanks for any comments/kudos/etc. you're all lovely!


	10. Forgetfulness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil and Carlos try to have a conversation several times. Carlos takes a while to realize that he's been forgetting things.

There wasn't much in the way of a lab to work in, now that the University was gone, but there wasn't much in the way of a team of scientists, either. Carlos and Cecil found themselves sitting outside the Half-Moon Cafe, brainstorming ideas of how to go forward. They found themselves in the sort of way that really concerned Carlos in particular.

Mid-sentence, he lost track of what he was saying and looked around, their surroundings half-unrecognizable for a few moments before he reoriented himself and where he was sitting.

Cecil, chin resting on his hands, laughed, and Carlos wasn't sure why.

"Sorry--what were we talking about?" Carlos asked, frowning down at the notebook sitting on the table, between them. Cecil's handwriting was near-incoherent.

Again, he laughed. "I have no idea."

Picking up the notebook, Cecil skimmed a few pages back and read over it, remarking as he did so that it was a _good_ thing that he wrote these things down in his Little Reporter's Book. "I guess we were talking about the Void," he concluded. "That doesn't surprise me. Did you know that's one of the most commonly forgotten things? People's names, anniversaries of personally significant events, childhood sensations of innocence, rare bird species, the Void. It's right up there."

Carlos pursed his lips and thought about this a moment. "Why?" he asked, and maybe a few days ago he would have been a little more upset by how this was happening, but it _was_ interesting, he had to admit that much, and Cecil didn't seem uncomfortable.

"Oh, you know. Deep, visceral fears at the center of human awareness. Or it's just really complicated. Do you know how we got here? I don't." Cecil laughed, it was weird that he kept doing that. "I didn't write it down. Look. Empty pages."

He flipped back in the notebook, and he'd left empty pages between what looked like the beginnings of a discussion about the Void, and the end of him jotting down that morning. The entire time he'd been with Carlos, up until the point they'd sat down outside of the Half-Moon Cafe, he hadn't jotted down a single note.

"Well I mean, that makes _sense_ , Cecil. Of course you didn't write anything on those pages, that was when we, uh-- ...we.... wow. You're right, I don't know either." Carlos didn't like the not knowing.

Cecil flipped back to the most recent page in the notebook and started writing as he spoke, "I think that we should do an exercise in thinking back, then. What _do_ you remember happening? I remember waking up this morning, when you called me. And then we met by the Void. And you stared into the Void for too long, and you blacked out."

"I remember that," Carlos agreed, nodding slowly. "Then we called Avery?"

"No, I think they called us," Cecil corrected.

They both lapsed into silence, Carlos unsure whether to mention the next part if Cecil wasn't thinking about it. How they'd been arguing. They must have sorted it out, right? If they were talking right now, they sorted it out somehow.

Or maybe they didn't. He watched Cecil jotting down sloppy notes of their conversation, and how Carlos was watching him in silence now, and how he was sitting in silence himself, and how neither of them were sure what to do next, and he thought it was rather uncanny watching somebody write down what was happening as it was happening. Cecil may as well have written that he was writing.

"Did you do something to me?"

The words came out of Carlos' mouth before he could stop them, and Cecil's eyes slowly lifted from his page to look straight at Carlos as he frowned. Before he could say anything, Carlos was apologizing, trying to make some excuse that he hadn't been thinking, but Cecil shook his head.

"I don't know," was his final conclusion. "Maybe I did? It's hard to explain. Everything... is hard to explain. Life is hard to explain. It's hard to _live_ , really. And incredibly hard to explain something if you don't remember fully what the explanation would be. Time is weird, Carlos." He sighed. "Perhaps I did something to you, and we have both forgotten. Maybe I didn't. I don't feel like I did, but that would be trusting my gut, and everyone knows that internal organs are dishonest."

Carlos wasn't sure he got anything out of that answer. He waited in silence for Cecil to clarify, and the clarification didn't come. He did note that Cecil had written all of that down with incredible speed, and without even looking as he wrote it.

Finally, he muttered, "I don't think you did anything to me."

Cecil smiled faintly and thanked him.

"So...what were we saying about the Void?" Carlos switched back to the earlier topic, hoping he would find some definitive answers for his questions. Cecil glanced back down at his notebook, and flipped back to reread his earlier notes aloud.

  
  


_[Talking as we got to the Half-Moon, Carlos ordered a coffee, sweetened, mine wasn't. Sat outside, less people there, so we could talk._

_C: "You keep saying we can't get them back. Why can't we get them back? If they can talk to us, there must be a link between here and the desert. They can bridge it if there's a link."_

_"I didn't say there wasn't a link. The Void and the desert are directly linked, in fact. They're exactly linked, two halves of the same coin linked. The link doesn't mean you can walk through from one into the other, even less that you can walk out of one from the other."_

_C: "What is the Void? You still haven't said."_

_"It... isn't?"_

_C: "Is this like 'nothing'? Nothing is something that happened, but it's really nothing? Because you have a really interesting way of talking about this but it's very confusing, too."_

_"Oh, Carlos, I don't know how else to explain it. How do you explain nothing? The Void is nothing, I already told you that. The biggest nothing. The best nothing."_

_C: "Now it's the best?"_

_"The biggest nothing."_

_Carlos stared. Probably thought something a while. Looked perfect._

_C: "How is any nothing better than another nothing?"_

_"I guess that's just my opinion."_

_C: "Why the Void then? What's the desert? You said that was another nothing, is that a good nothing? How do the nothings compare to each other?"_

_"I don't like the desert, I mean, I've never been there, and maybe it's not fair of me to judge it without knowing it, but I really don't think I would like the desert. It does... terrible things to people."_

_C: "What does it do?"_

_Couldn't think of answer. Can't think of answer. Looking busy writing writing writing. Staring at me while I write. Probably write messier. Carlos can't read this._

_"It's just. It's bright. Endlessly, forever, blindingly. It washes people away, until there is nothing left of them. It's... a great, dangerous... unbecoming."_

_C: "That sounds like a voidy thing, unbecoming."_

_"The Void won't hurt you. It wouldn't ever hurt you, especially not like that."_

_Said too much probably. No good._

_C: "Do you speak for the Void now?"]_

  
  


The page trailed off into scribbles, any words Cecil had written scratched out until it continued on with _["I think that we should do an exercise in thinking back, then."]_ , ending with _[C: "So...what were we saying about the Void?"]_. He didn't read that part.

Carlos looked puzzled. "Wait, you speak for the Void?"

All Cecil could do was sigh and wait for the inevitable, when five minutes later Carlos was asking what they were talking about again, and eventually he would ask what they were talking about and _when it got so dark_ , because hadn't they just gotten there, and wasn't it light?

It played out as a repetition.

"What were we talking about?" "The Void."

"What were we talking about?" "The desert."

"What were we talking about?" "I don't know."

"What were we talking about?" "Your perfect hair."

Carlos paused at the new statement, a break in the pattern that Cecil had perfectly engineered to--nah, he just figured he would say it if Carlos was only going to forget it anyway.

"You think my hair is perfect?" he asked, self-conscious and trying to brush it out of his face, it was long enough to try to push behind his shoulders and hide it, but not long enough to stay hidden.

Cecil laughed, it was all he could do at this point after losing track of how many times they'd looped right back to start. "You're beautiful, Carlos."

Said with the certainty that he wouldn't remember it later. Still, it was funny watching Carlos turn bright red and start stumbling over his words until he asked Cecil again, what they had _really_ been talking about, "And not my hair. We weren't talking about my hair."

"We were talking about the Void," Cecil replied with a sigh. "And we should probably stop, before you forget what we were talking about, again."

Carlos frowned. "Is that what's going on? I'm forgetting? Why do I keep forgetting?"

"The Void is big, and complicated, and a lot of people forget about it," Cecil muttered. "And that's alright. That's alright! You're supposed to forget about the Void. It's nothing, the biggest nothing, the best nothing--and, thinking about too much of nothing, it's bad for you. Don't think about the Void."

Here, Carlos finally laughed a little. "So don't think about nothing, think about something?"

Cecil nodded. "Exactly. If you think about too much nothing, you'll forget all about it. So think about something. We were going to think about a lot of things, weren't we? You wanted to know if I could help get everybody out, and that's when I said--"

"That you couldn't, because you said your intern was stuck in the desert, and you couldn't get her out either, right?" Carlos attempted to complete.

Cecil stopped dead in what he was going to say, and nodded agreement with Carlos instead. "Yes. That's--yes. I could not get Dana out of the desert, she had to find her own way out. You need to tell your friends, we cannot simply get them out. They need to find their own way out and we-- ...we have our own things to deal with, I have no doubt."

"Do we?" Carlos looked around, as if expecting something to appear out of the sky at any moment, although nothing did. The stars hung up there, twinkling--

(although that wasn't scientifically accurate, stars didn't twinkle, but instead burned with a constant level of light)

\--and the moon looked normal and a helicopter flying overhead was normal and nothing was going on. He looked back down and Cecil was staring at him, waiting for him to make eye contact again.

"Do you trust me, Carlos?" he asked, uncertain perhaps if he trusted himself.

Carlos hesitated, but he decided that there was nothing to do for it but to agree, at this point; he said that he trusted Cecil, and this seemed to instantly relieve the tension between them, because Cecil switched topics fairly casually after that.

"Do you know if this town has any radio stations that might be looking for some help? I'm still on the lookout for a job, and I _really_ think that I would like a job in radio. I am, after all, a radio professional. I should get to do my profession!"

Laughing lightly, Carlos remarked, "You say that almost as often as I call myself a scientist. Do people ever make fun of you for it?"

Cecil cocked his head to the side like he didn't get it, and Carlos told him to forget it.

"Anyway, I don't know if there are any stations looking for people? I mean, I don't even _own_ a radio, honestly. I don't listen to it ever," Carlos admitted.

This statement seemed to offend Cecil deeply, though the look of disbelief on his face partnered with the tone of his voice did nothing but make it difficult for Carlos not to giggle a bit.

"You don't _own_ a radio? How can you not own a radio?" he complained. "That would be like--like not owning _bloodstones_ , or a _phone_. Everyone has one! That would be like not owning shoes! How can you not own a radio??"

His giggling only growing in intensity, Carlos gave up trying to stifle it and instead replied, "I mean it's not like a personal affront to you, Cecil, I've never had a radio and I don't have bloodstones either so maybe not everyone needs those things."

Cecil frowned deeply, but in the sort of way that looked like he was exaggerating his frown to keep from laughing. "That's not funny, Carlos. You need a radio, everyone needs a radio. And you need bloodstones! What do you expect to pray with if you don't have bloodstones?"

He shrugged, "I don't really believe in anything but science."

A long silence passed. Cecil wasn't writing this down in his notebook, either. He finally asked, "But do you believe in me, Carlos?"

Carlos shrugged noncommittally and replied, "Sure, I guess."

Momentarily, Cecil didn't look sure whether to take this as an answer or not, but he decided in the end that it was good enough. "Well, then you should get a radio. And I'll find you some bloodstones, and I'll show you how to _use_ them, never use them without me showing you how. It's not safe without lessons. But you need that, and you need a radio, and. Come on."

He rose from his seat, stuffing his Little Reporter's Book into his bag as he did so.

"Let's go get you a radio."

Without asking permission, Cecil pulled Carlos to his feet and dragged him off down the sidewalk, holding onto his hand the whole way. It was a gesture that wasn't entirely unwelcome, although _entirely_ distracting--

(Is it supposed to feel like this when you hold somebody's hand? What should you do if your fingers start going numb? Is the tingling normal?)

\--but that wasn't anything that Carlos was about to bring up. He followed along and tried to ask Cecil why the radio was such a big deal, receiving some pretty open-ended responses.

"Because you should be interested in what's going on in the world around you."

"Because you won't be alone in empty rooms with radio."

"Because I would like if you listened to me, when I have a show."

Carlos cracked a smile at the last suggestion and replied simply, "Oh." And he didn't ask again, because that was a good enough answer for him (and he was starting not to mind the tingling, either).

Then they were standing in an electronics store, looking over a selection of radios, and Carlos wasn't sure how they'd gotten there but he noticed that Cecil had let go of his hand. He looked down at both of their hands, and after a moment, attempted to reestablish contact.

Cecil jerked his hand away with a warning of "Too much. You aren't used to it."

Carlos giggled nervously. "Used to it? Do you think you're the first boy whose hand I've ever held?" He reached for Cecil's hand again. "I'm used to it."

With a sigh, Cecil let him grab hold again. Well, he would get used to it, anyway.

They left with a small radio, nothing too big or fancy, but quality enough--Cecil had made sure of that. He'd talked with the saleswoman for a while about sound quality and Carlos vaguely remembered there being a rather heated debate about it, but then that wasn't very clear in his memory either.

On the way home, he asked Cecil quietly, "Why do I keep forgetting where we are?"

"Do you remember what I told you about the Void?" Cecil asked.

Frowning, Carlos answered that he didn't.

"Exactly. It's too big, and too vast, and too complicated. You'll learn how to remember it later. Too much at once is no good for you," Cecil explained. "There's too much to easily adjust. I'm taking you back to your apartment. But you should probably stop holding my hand."

Carlos looked down, he didn't even realize he was still doing it, or doing it again? When had he started? When was he going to stop?

(Did he _have_ to stop? It felt sort of pleasant, the tingling. But his head was also swimming, and he wasn't sure why that was, and maybe that was a bad sign but.)

"Why?" he asked.

Cecil sighed, "Do you remember what I told you about the Void?"

Carlos shook his head like it was the first time he'd been asked that question.

"Exactly. You should probably stop holding my hand."

Carlos didn't.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we must get more confusing before we can make more sense. and stop talking about the Void.
> 
> thanks for the comments/kudos!! you guys continue to be awesome. c:


	11. Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos doesn't remember what happened the night before, and Cecil is still in his house. The reader gets really excited because the name of the chapter is "touch."

Carlos stirred early in the day, without remembering to set his alarm. He hardly ever used it, anyway, by this point he was so programmed he would wake up whether it went off or not.

How he'd arrived in his bed the night before, he wasn't entirely sure. In fact, a lot of the night had sort of faded into oblivion. He knew he'd spoken with Cecil at some point in the afternoon, and maybe (?) they'd spoken a bit in the evening.

Alternately, he may have taken Cecil home with him in some bizarre late night mistake, and that was an option he was considering with some amount of dread as he noticed the pile of blankets on the floor that he wouldn't have dragged out for no reason. Carlos scanned the room to make sure everything was in order, and the next order of business was figuring out why Cecil  _ wasn't  _ in the bedroom, and where he was.

Carlos donned his house labcoat, making sure to button it for once as he wandered out to find Cecil in the kitchen, busily at work making breakfast. A non-burned breakfast. That included pancakes and eggs and bacon and Carlos was pretty sure half the ingredients had not been in his house the day before. A paper grocery bag still sitting on the counter confirmed this.

At some point, Cecil had actually gone out and grabbed the necessary groceries just to make a fancy breakfast, and now he was dancing around the kitchen with headphones on, humming along--until he caught sight of Carlos standing in the doorway and stopped instantly.

"Good morning, Carlos!" he said way too loudly; Carlos gestured to the headphones and Cecil realized his error, and took them off.

Once he knew he'd be heard, Carlos asked quietly, "When did you get here?"

"I've been here all night," Cecil replied brightly, confirming his suspicions. "Well, except when I went to get groceries. Your eggs were all bad, and then while I was there I thought, why not get some other things too? So I did that... and now I'm back, and there's breakfast. Are you feeling alright this morning? I kept trying to wake you, and maybe that was something I wasn't supposed to do, because you sort of kept hitting me? But I wanted to make sure, you know, that you were going to. Wake up, I mean. That you were going to wake back up."

Carlos pursed his lips and thought this all over. "Why... wouldn't I have woken back up, Cecil?"

"Oh, well, I suppose at any moment somebody may not wake up." He shrugged and tried to play it off nonchalantly, but to Cecil's detriment, he had a very expressive face. The worry had etched itself into his features and not quite faded away just yet. "You should have some breakfast."

A frown was spreading on Carlos' face, and he didn't make a move toward the breakfast table. "Cecil... what aren't you telling me? Did you do something to me?"

Quickly, Cecil replied, "I didn't." Then only a moment's pause followed. "I mean, I didn't do anything to you _intentionally_ this time. And--and it's not permanent, dear Carlos. No damage was done, you woke back up! Everything is _fine_."

Carlos stared as he stumbled over his words, simultaneously trying to explain and to excuse himself. A sick feeling washed over Carlos, and he had to look away.

"I think you need to leave. Whatever you did to me--I. I think you need to leave, Cecil."

He couldn't just keep trusting a stranger who had already admitted multiple times to doing something to him. It didn't matter if Cecil was cute, it didn't matter if he seemed nice. Carlos had a horrible taste in men, but he wasn't going to go after somebody who could kill him in his sleep.

"I didn't... Carlos, I didn't," he hopelessly tried to explain, his voice pleading. "I didn't hurt you, Carlos. I stayed, I wanted to make sure you were alright, I didn't touch you once you were in bed but. I wanted to make sure you got home. I wanted to make sure you were _safe_ , I'm sorry, I didn't realize..."

Carlos clenched his fists, staring away from Cecil, the last thing he wanted was to see that hurt look on his face that he was so sure went along with the sadness in his voice. "Cecil. You need to leave."

"But. Last night--I thought. _You_ were the one who kept holding my hand, Carlos. I told you it wasn't safe, I didn't want to hurt you." He didn't even sound like he thought he could win this one.

" _Holding your hand?_ Is that what happened?" Carlos complained, looking back over at him. "I held your hand and you thought I was going to drop dead??"

Cecil nodded solemnly, he looked guilty.

"Why? What would holding your hand hurt somebody, Cecil?" he asked. "What _are_ you?"

A long silence passed between the two of them. Cecil turned off the stove and gestured for Carlos to sit at the table, taking a seat opposite him. He cleared his throat, and then lapsed back into silence for another minute or two, anyway.

When Cecil finally found the words, he broke the silence. "I can't explain, I already told you that I can't. You'll only forget if I tried to. I told you who I am, you know that. I'm Cecil. They called me the Voice of Night Vale, for a long time. A really, _really_ long time. But I left! So I don't think that's my title anymore. But, you _know_. I always thought it was very fitting."

Carlos frowned at the explanation, "You know you're not saying anything that's actually new. You already told me, you were a radio announcer in this... Night Vale place. How does that help me?"

"Well, they. Well." He stumbled over his words, not normally something that Cecil would struggle with, but trying to explain himself in front of Carlos, his gift of gab wasn't working well enough. "I've told you about my influence. What I _am_ , it lets me guide people, and I can help protect people, that way. I can tell people what to do. And I can keep people calm. And I can do a lot of things, if I have a microphone, but in person sometimes I can be a bit intense... for people up close."

"Your influence kills people?" Carlos wanted to ask him why he would ever use it, then, he wanted to yell at him for using it earlier.

But Cecil shook his head. "No. What you feel, touching me, is not my influence. I only influence through thoughts and words. When you touched me, you..." he trailed off. Cecil was visibly upset, though his voice stayed level once he found it again. "The thing that gives me my influence, I can't tell you what it is, because you'll forget. But sometimes, when people are too close to me, _it_ can hurt them. I--...I've had it happen, before, to boys that I've been with."

Carlos stared in disbelief. "You... killed them?"

"No!" Cecil's eyes went wide, "Oh, no, no, no. That wasn't what I said at all! They kept _forgetting_ everything, though. It really didn't work out. They come to me years later, _oh, Cecil, we could have had something_. And they don't remember that we did. We did have something."

He hung his head. Carlos watched him quietly from across the table and couldn't think of what to say in response. At length, he found the words.

"Do you think there might be a way to... stop that?" he asked. "I mean, there must be, right? Has anybody ever tried to investigate into it? Maybe run some experiments, see if something could help reduce the chances of people forgetting."

Cecil glanced over at him. "I don't know? It might be dangerous."

"Well, if you said you were... _with_ people, and nothing bad happened but they just forgot, I don't think it's more dangerous than anything else," Carlos remarked. "Don't you think, if it was dangerous, something bad would have happened to the people you were... intimate with?"

He still found it pretty funny that Cecil's blush had a purplish hue, and maybe it was a bit endearing, too. Cecil buried his face in his hands in embarrassment and agreed with Carlos' statement: he hadn't accidentally killed anybody, maybe he was just afraid that it was possible.

"I don't expect so. Maybe, though, we could try to see if there might be a way to escape the memory effects, too. I mean, if _anyone_ can figure it out, a scientist can, right?" He smiled and reached across the table. "Give me your hand for a moment."

Cecil lowered his hands from his face, and cautiously reached out with one of them, taking Carlos' hand gently. His sleeves were rolled up, and Carlos confirmed that the tattoos on his arms certainly _did_ move, as some rumors had reported. The inked tentacles quivered anxiously as they held hands for a few moments. Carlos couldn't help but be distracted, both by the tingle from Cecil's touch, and watching his tattoos move.

"What are you doing?" Cecil finally asked, when he realized that Carlos didn't seem to be doing anything but holding his hand from across the table.

Here, Carlos finally released him.

"There. I didn't forget about holding your hand," he said with a small smile.

Cecil smiled back, embarrassed. "Oh. No, I--I guess not."

Satisfied with his preliminary test, Carlos leaned back in his seat. "Either there's a time limit for how long I can touch you, or I need to get used to it. I think, if we did some more um, experiments, maybe I can figure out which one of those it is. If you would be a willing test subject."

The smile on Cecil's face only grew as he nodded with enthusiasm. "Yes! I mean--of course. Of course, I would love to be your... test subject, lovely Carlos."

"Excellent. Now, I think maybe we should actually eat breakfast," Carlos said with a slight laugh. "It looks _really_ good, a lot better than my cooking."

"Oh. There's bacon, too." Cecil rose from his seat so he could grab the pan off the stove, maybe a little too crispy, but he'd turned it off before it had gotten particularly burnt. He added the final ingredient to each of their plates, and then sat down to join Carlos for breakfast.

Carlos, who had already started into his food with enthusiasm, complimented Cecil on his cooking several times throughout the meal. Cecil accepted every compliment with a self-conscious smile, clearly pleased that he'd done a good job.

After breakfast, they were pretty much arguing over whose responsibility it was to clean the dishes; Carlos insisted that since Cecil had done the cooking, it was his job to wash up. Cecil argued that since he'd made the mess, he was the one who was supposed to clean it up.

"Come on, Cecil, that doesn't make sense. You've been up _how_ long making breakfast? You don't need to worry about cleaning it up." Carlos pushed him away from the sink.

Cecil pushed back, "I could be up all night, that doesn't matter, I made the mess."

"Oh, you self-sacrificing jerk." Carlos laughed as he found himself pushed against the wall. Cecil pulled back and told him to stay put, he snapped back, "No, I'm not staying put! It's my turn to help."

"No. You go get dressed," Cecil commanded. "I'm already dressed."

Carlos rolled his eyes. "Please. You didn't really stay up all night though, did you?"

A moment's silence passed. Cecil shrugged and started trying to wash the dishes while Carlos watched, a bit of a frown tugging at his lips. The lack of an answer was an answer in itself.

"I pulled out all those blankets for you, why didn't you at least make use of them?" Carlos argued, trying to sound less concerned than he was. Faking that he was offended.

Cecil quirked an eyebrow, "Oh, you remember doing that? I told you several times not to bother, but you insisted. _You_ slept on the floor half the night." He was giggling by the end of the sentence. "I couldn't make you get in bed, you told me to take it."

Carlos scoffed, "Maybe you should have."

"No, I was keeping an eye on you."

"Just one?"

Cecil looked over at him, and for a moment they caught each other's eyes. Carlos tried to keep a straight face, and Cecil wasn't doing much better at it himself. He turned off the sink and dried his hands, leaving their dishes in the water.

Despite himself, Carlos tensed a little when Cecil approached him. Noticing, Cecil stopped with some distance still between them, and watched him quietly a moment. He certainly handled sleep loss a lot better than Carlos, if he'd really been up all night like he said, because Carlos never would have guessed it, looking at him. Then again, maybe the dark rings around his eyes suggested he wasn't new to staying up. Carlos realized that he was probably staring too intently at Cecil's face and looked away.

He still felt Cecil's eyes on him for a few more moments before Cecil made as if to go back to washing dishes, not wanting to get too close if Carlos was uneasy.

Before he knew what he was doing, Carlos had reached out and pulled him closer, to stop him from moving away. With his hands on Cecil's shoulders, he pulled him in enough to give him a quick kiss that was probably supposed to aim for his lips, but Cecil moved and ended up kissed on the nose instead.

They watched each other, Carlos giggling nervously for the few moments before Cecil took the initiative and went in for a real kiss, this time. The feeling was practically electric with the same sort of energy that he felt anytime he touched Cecil. Plus, and he couldn't say this for himself, Cecil was an _amazing_ kisser.

He pulled back after a moment, and left Carlos in a daze while he walked back to the dishes and resumed working on them in silence, like he was waiting for a statement from Carlos to determine whether he'd completely forgotten the moment just moments later, or if he'd pulled away soon enough.

Once he regained his senses, Carlos said, "We need to do that again. For uh, science."

Cecil laughed. "Go get dressed. Give yourself a break."

"Fine. But I'm coming back." Carlos couldn't entirely argue that, his head was still swimming, and as he left the room he had to make sure he wasn't stumbling at all. All the way to his bedroom, he was smiling. He dug through his wardrobe, wanted to make sure he looked nice for once.

Sure, maybe Cecil was something _weird_ , maybe he wasn't exactly human. But he was cute. He was nice. And god, Carlos hadn't felt so embarrassingly giddy in years.

Forget caution. He was going for it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully this was well worth the wait. I've been pondering over whether I wanted to go for it this chapter, and you know, I've waited long enough I think. yes.
> 
> as always, updates are sort of as they come right now, since I'm going into the last week of school currently, and in a bit of a crunch time. thank you to everyone for the comments/kudos/etc. you're all really great!


	12. Silhouette

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos investigates the Void. Cecil gets a visitor. Carlos gets a phonecall. Somewhere in the mix, there's a kiss, and abject terror.

"So how do you know so much about the Void?"

The question didn't garner an immediate answer. Stationed out by the gaping rip in reality that had once been the University of What It Is, Cecil had mainly come along to make sure Carlos didn't accidentally fall in while he investigated any properties of the space that he could think to test. He also got to wear a labcoat he'd borrowed from Carlos, and feel all scientific.

It wasn't that he thought the science of it was pointless, just that, no, yeah, it was pretty unlikely that the science Carlos was doing was going to in any way be able to change the Void, nor would he really _want_ it to, even if it could.

"Cecil? Are you listening to me?" He peered up from where he was, crouched near the edge of the Void and studying the edge of reality by poking it very scientifically with a ruler. It was scientific because he wasn't just using a stick. Neither the edge of the sidewalk nor the ruler reacted to this test, it was basically like sticking a ruler in a regular hole probably would be.

Finally looking up from his Tumblr page, Cecil blinked for a moment. "Hm? Oh, the Void? I've just been around it a _lot_. You could say I sort of grew up with it."

Carlos considered this. "Is that why you don't get dizzy looking at it?"

Without looking up from his phone, Cecil replied in the affirmative, adding, "If you're getting dizzy, you should probably move back. If you fall into the Void, it might be hard for me to get you back."

"But you _could_ get me back?" he asked, watching Cecil now instead of staring into the Void.

Cecil picked up on the challenge in his tone, and frowned at him. "Maybe. Don't go into the Void, Carlos. That's a theory that I _don't_ want to test, even if your science is pretty cute."

"Science isn't cute, Cecil. It's very serious," Carlos insisted as he searched his pockets for something that he wouldn't mind dropping into the Void. In the end, he decided the least likely thing he would miss might be a handful of paperclips and a rubber bands.

After he dropped the first paperclip into the Void, Cecil looked up from his phone again. "What are you doing? Stop throwing things into the Void. First of all it's dangerous and secondly, you don't even know if the Void wants your paperclips. Maybe your paperclips aren't welcome. You shouldn't give unwelcome gifts to the Void."

Carlos dropped another papeclip into the Void, musing over it as it vanished into the darkness. "Is there a bottom to the Void though? Maybe if I dropped something bigger, it would make a noise when it hit. The Void has to end _somewhere,_ or it would go right through the whole world, Cecil." He hesitated, peering over his shoulder at Cecil. "It doesn't go through the world, does it?"

"No. It doesn't. Stop dropping office supplies into the Void."

Ignoring Cecil's request, Carlos stretched a rubber band and launched it into the Void. "So where does the Void end?" He was trying to listen for the sound of the anything hitting the bottom, but it just wasn't making a noise. Maybe it ended so far that the noise was just too quiet to even hear.

"It doesn't," Cecil corrected. "The Void doesn't end, because it never began. The Void is nothing, how does nothing have a beginning or an end? I would think that as a scientist, you would understand the simple concept of nothing. There is no end to nothing."

Carlos stared into the Void for a few minutes, then, long enough to forget what he was doing when Cecil pulled him away from the edge. Maybe for a moment longer, he still felt the same as he'd felt staring straight into nothing, and then Cecil let go of him and the feeling slowly began to subside.

"Somebody needs to put a fence up," Cecil insisted. "It's dangerous leaving the Void uncovered."

He sighed, glancing back at the Void for a moment, but Cecil directed his face away from it and told him to stop staring. Carlos had to agree; looking at Cecil was a lot less disorienting than staring into the depths of nothingness.

"Why do you keep talking about _fences_ , Cecil? We need to get rid of the Void, not put a fence around it. People can climb over fences, anyway!" he argued.

Cecil shifted uneasily, "I don't know how you can dispose of nothing, Carlos. I really don't think you're thinking this through. We could put up a very _tall_ fence, nobody will climb it. Maybe put up signs to tell people to keep out. Label it something really _boring_ that nobody would actually want to go past the fence to see. Like a garbage dump or maybe, I don't know, a dog park or something, you know. Places nobody actually goes."

The words were on the tip of Carlos' tongue to ask why dog parks kept coming up, but when he cast his gaze toward Cecil's face again, he noted that they weren't alone there, anymore. Only, he couldn't really describe the figure that was standing behind Cecil.

It was... incredibly tall, almost inhumanly tall, almost inhuman, mostly inhuman, with skin as black as coal, with eyes and eyes and eyes and eyes. If he'd thought Cecil's third eye was unique--

(oh, but Cecil's third eye was _perfectly_ formed and symmetrical and now that he was getting used to it, he rather thought he liked it)

\--then he'd never anticipated seeing somebody with so many more of them, all over their body. If they were a somebody. If they were anything but a silhouette and wings and eyes and wings, impossibly tall and staring down at Cecil and Carlos, expressionless.

Carlos was not so expressionless. When Cecil noticed the look of horrified bewilderment that crossed his face, he looked up. Oddly, his face lit up when he saw the strange figure.

"Oh, Erika! I didn't know _you_ were coming here, what about Josie?"

Unbelievably, Cecil began to chat amicably with the creature. Carlos couldn't make out a single word of what Erika was saying, it sounded like some kind of made up language, and Cecil just kept responding in English anyway, and he was hearing half of the conversation as a result.

"Well, I mean, if you're _sure_ there are enough of you back in Night Vale with her. I mean, I like the company! I didn't say I didn't like your company, did I? It's been--neat, out here." Cecil laughed. The creature replied again, and Carlos couldn't understand that either. But he did understand something:

The grin fell right off of Cecil's face.

"I was _hoping_ maybe you just came to say hello because you missed me. I know a _lot_ of Night Vale has been missing me, I heard from Maureen that she just can't even find any interns now that they're not interning under me! I told her, it's going to take a while, it took a long while with me--such a long while--and then everyone liked me! So I mean--"

Erika interrupted him sharply, with that strange discordant speech of theirs, and planted their hands on their hips. Carlos became suddenly quite aware of how odd the gesture seemed coming from a silhouette with eyes and wings. He also reasoned that this probably wasn't what the creature looked like, but maybe how it chose to present itself.

And it was, well, _weird_.

The next response Cecil gave was, Carlos assumed, in whatever language Erika was speaking. He hadn't gotten used to the way Cecil switched into languages that never existed, that didn't sound possible for a human voice to speak. He watched the exchange in silence, as Cecil seemed to bicker fearlessly with something that probably could kill both of them (?) or at least looked pretty frightening.

Their argument ended reasonably quickly, at which point Erika's eyes all focused on Carlos. He shifted uncomfortably, unsure if he had been the topic of the argument, or had Erika just noticed him, or...? Cecil laughed and pulled Carlos to his feet, facing him toward Erika. He wound an arm around Carlos' shoulders in maybe a manner that was meant to be reassuring; the tingle that accompanied his touch worked well enough to wipe the fear out of Carlos, facing Erika.

"This is Carlos," Cecil explained to the entity. "Carlos uh--Carlos the scientist. He's really smart, you know, because he does _science_ all the time. He's helping me out since I came here! And we're going to put up a fence around the Void. Promise."

Erika nodded, and murmured what sounded like approval, reaching out to lay a long-fingered hand on Carlos' head, as if in some sort of blessing. The touch burned in a way that Cecil's didn't, but when Carlos tried to move back, Cecil's grip tensed around his shoulders to hold him still.

"I think his hair is beautiful too, Erika," he remarked. "I'm glad you approve."

Carlos boggled at the possibility that Erika was just trying to touch his hair, currently. The thought was... pretty absurd, in truth. They raised their hand from Carlos' head, and the burn subsided until all he could feel was Cecil's arm still wound around his shoulders. He looked to Cecil for some indication of how he was supposed to be taking this whole event, but kept his mouth shut, too lost for words to even try talking.

Whispering approvals at Cecil, Erika inspected the labcoat he'd snatched from Carlos' wardrobe and then patted him on the head, much less like a blessing and more like an approving parent. If the touch burned Cecil at all, he didn't even flinch.

"Thank you, Erika. Listen, we're going to go and get a fence set up, now. And I promise I'll call Josie later to let her know, so _you_ can know, so everyone who needs to know can know. Everything is fine here, and I'm fine." Cecil smiled up at them. "Better than fine. We've got this under control."

He squeezed Carlos' shoulders and Carlos tried to grin up at the figure too, because it seemed like the appropriate response. Erika blinked back with a whole lot of eyes, gave a nod of their head, and whisked away into the sky on enormous wings.

Carlos realized after a moment that his thought wasn't why Erika had wings, but how they'd taken off without having to get a running start.

And he laughed. He couldn't help it. He just started laughing.

For once, Cecil actually looked quite taken aback. Maybe he'd expected any number of reactions from Carlos, but none of them involved laughing until he was gripping Cecil to steady himself while he tried to calm back down.

"I'm glad you liked Erika, but what's so funny?" Cecil sounded so unsure now of how he was supposed to reply.

After he'd trailed off from his laughter, Carlos straightened himself back up again, looked Cecil dead in the eyes (well, two of them), and pulled him in for a kiss. Confused but now excited, Cecil reciprocated with more enthusiasm than the moment called for, and Carlos had to pull away.

Cecil again spoke up, "Not that I don't like this, because I _really_ like this, but are you alright?"

"Alright?" Carlos asked. "Oh, Cecil, I think I'm better than alright. This is all so _weird_. It's--this is--you are the most scientifically interesting thing that has happened here _ever_. Who was that? _What_ was that? Is this going to keep happening? Because I'd really like to ask them some questions if they come back, but maybe you'll have to translate for me!"

A confused smile on his face, Cecil agreed. "Of course I would translate."

Before he had the chance to say anything else, Carlos continued speaking, "Look at me, Cecil. Look at me, I'm going to interview some weird--something! I'm kissing some--I don't know what you even call yourself!"

"Well, they called me the Voice of--" Cecil began, and Carlos interrupted with a kiss, which turned out to be the single most successful technique for silencing Cecil before he got rambling.

When he pulled back again, Cecil had the dumbest grin on his face.

"Is that even a title?" Carlos asked him, "Because see, I assumed it was a title, but the way you keep saying it, that almost sounds like--I don't know. When I ask you what you are, how are you just a voice? I mean, it's pretty obvious you're right here, Cecil! You're right in front of me, observed by my two eyes; what's the Voice of Night Vale?"

Cecil's answer was interrupted when Carlos received a phonecall, and he was pretty sure he had never been so unhappy to hear his phone ringing in his life, but he pulled it out of his pocket and answered without checking the caller ID. "Yes? Is this personal or professional?"

Dr. Sylvia Kayali's voice came through. "Carlos. There's something _here_. I--we-- we don't know what it is. Are you still with that--that _outsider_? He hasn't left, has he?"

He frowned at the tone of her voice but answered, "Cecil is right here. Do you want to talk to him? We were trying to see how far the Void went, but if something else more pressing came up--"

"Put me on speakerphone," she demanded. Carlos did so, and told her once he had.

For a few long moments, she gathered her thoughts before she began, "Cecil, correct? He called you Cecil? Do you know that members of our student body have gone missing? My colleague Rachelle left the University with a group of several students and came back alone and _raving_ about some desert _god_. What is in this desert?"

Cecil shifted uncomfortably under the stare that Carlos was giving him, and he replied, "Yes, the god. The Smiling God. But, it can't do anything to you without a vessel and-- _oh_. Stupid, stupid Cecil, of course. No. Don't leave the University. None of you should leave the University. Barricade yourselves in, if you must. Do not make contact with the Smiling God."

"There isn't a god in this desert," Dr. Kayali insisted, "I know you aren't implying that. What _is_ it? What did it do to Rachelle, how do we _fix_ it?"

"Do not talk to her about the Smiling God. I imagine she must be under its protection by now, doctor. I'm sorry for your loss."

Carlos interjected, "Wait, what's going on? Cecil?"

His tone more severe, Cecil replied to both Carlos and Dr. Kayali on the other line, "I'm afraid that your colleague is gone. Doctor, please barricade her outside of the University. It will be safer for everyone if you--"

A scream from the other line cut him off. Carlos called frantically for his supervisor, "Sylvia? Sylvia, are you alright?"

No answer came from Dr. Kayali, but somewhere in the room that the phonecall had been made from, a clatter could be heard to suggest the phone hadn't just been left alone.

"You need to leave the University alone," Cecil hissed sternly at the phone. "Whoever you were--whoever you want to say you _are_ , I know who you are."

The other line that picked up the phone laughed, and laughed, and spoke with the sort of mirth that could suggest a smile without any visual necessary.

The voice was male, and nobody who Carlos recognized, but the laughter wasn't for him.

"Oh, _Cecil_ , I've been wondering when we were going to get to talk again! I've really _missed_ you, right? Being stuck in this desert all this time, it just hasn't been a productive use of my time, but I've had plenty of time to think."

"Why aren't you _dead_?" Cecil asked like an accusation.

"Don't you remember, Cecil? You put me here, you didn't _kill_ me," the voice answered cheerfully. "I've been very safe here, actually! The Smiling God has been taking care of me. I would have called you sooner, but I had to wait _so_ very long for somebody with a phone to come here. And it took a couple of tries! I don't know _how_ these phones work, they look so... different. But--I knew if I followed them back, someone would call you, and I was right! I thought you'd forgotten all about me, thank you for giving me this _whole_ University."

Cecil spoke with a fury that Carlos was glad wasn't directed at him. "I didn't give you _anything_. The desert took it--that--that _thing_ you speak with took it, and it wasn't yours to take."

He sighed dramatically, "Cecil, you make it too easy to just take anything, and just think--now, the Smiling God has _subjects_ again. People to do productive _work_ for him again. We're really just glad for the donation! Of course, I don't know if everyone else knows yet, but they'll be glad once they've seen the light, I can promise you that!"

Carlos dared to ask, "What did you do to Sylvia?"

"Oh, nothing," the voice laughed. "She just got one look at me, and she ran! I guess I must have _really_ took her by surprise!"

Cecil asked the next question, solemnly. "Kevin, what have you been doing to the students?"

"Hm?"

"Dr-- Sylvia said that students had gone missing. What have you done to them? What did you do to her colleagues?"

Kevin laughed, and it wasn't so light and innocent anymore. "Oh, the _students?_ Why, Cecil, I'm flattered that you asked. I introduced them to the Smiling God, himself. I showed them the light."

"You--you _monster_." Cecil shook as he hissed this into the phone, and Carlos felt terrified all at once that they weren't going to be able to set _anything_ straight.

But Kevin still sounded so relaxed and so very pleased with himself, "Listen, Cecil. If you _really_ want to talk to me, why don't you come visit sometime? I'm sure your little scientist friends would love the company, and so would I!"

Carlos half expected Cecil to act on the invitation, but he did nothing, staring at the phone with furrowed brows, clearly troubled. After a length of considerable silence, Kevin spoke again.

"Listen, my battery is going to run out, so I had better let you go. Call me back later, Cecil. When you're alone. I think we really need to talk!"

Cecil began to protest as the line went dead. Carlos didn't point out that he said the batteries wouldn't run out, he didn't ask what Kevin had done to the students--he didn't want to know.

Instead, he locked his phone and stuffed it back into his pocket in silence.

Cecil found his voice at length.

"Erika... told me that _he_ was coming after me. I didn't expect so soon--and I didn't think Kevin was still alive. We need a fence around the Void and--and we need radio, Carlos. We need to use radio."

Carlos frowned. "What's radio going to do?"

"I need to warn as many people as possible."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops, I may have fallen off the face of the earth for a bit, and I may fall off the face of the earth a bit again. finals week, right? finals, how ridiculous.
> 
> now I can put horrifying interruptions into the middle of cute chapters, because hey reminder to Cecil and Carlos: something terrible is going on underneath all the romantic tension. geez, you two, stop crushing on each other and remember the Void.
> 
> as always, thanks for the comments/kudos! you guys are all really grand. really, really fantastically grand!


	13. Down at the Station

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strange things continue happening in the University of What It Is. Meanwhile, Carlos and Cecil embark on a quest to have their warnings heard. Down at the station for the What It Is Community Radio, things don't go quite according to plan.

Kevin looked the phone over after hanging up, then glanced down at the unconscious Dr. Kayali, laying on the floor where she'd fallen. He laughed lightly.

“You're going to have to show me how to call him back later, doctor.”

He stuffed the phone into his pocket for later use and crouched by the woman, looking her over. His hands, covered in blood, left streaks over her sleeves as he pulled her up into a sitting position against the front of her desk. Whether she was bleeding after he whacked her upside the head with an academic trophy, he couldn't tell.

The first to run into the room after hearing her scream was Dave, terrified and holding a baseball bat, as though that was going to give him the strength and certainty to do anything about the whole situation. He dropped it when he caught sight of Kevin crouched over his boss, a perfect picture of blood and gore.

All over his hands and ragged clothing, he was splattered and smeared in blood and viscera, and this he was getting all over Dr. Kayali as he made to bind her hands behind her back. Dave couldn't tell whether it was her blood, or somebody else's.

Or his. That freak of nature, staring over at Dave with eyes black as an oil slick, appearing to ooze down his face, third eye sewn shut, Glasgow smile sliced across his face like a fresh wound, still raw. He slowly broke out into a full grin, seeming larger than anyone could possibly have cracked a smile.

“Well hello, concerned citizen! I see you've brought me a baseball bat, that was very courteous of you, but I don't need it anymore!”

Dave stumbled back, but something occurred to him before he got too far: Dr. Kayali, where she lay propped against her desk, was still breathing. She was still  _ alive _ , at least for the moment. He fought the urge to run, shaking where he stood as he confronted the stranger.

“Wh-what the hell are you doing? What did you do to Sylvia??” he stammered.

Kevin laughed, a rich laugh. “Oh, I didn't do anything! You're another one of those  _ scientists _ , aren't you? You scientists, you're just so very quick to make assumptions. Listen, all I needed was to borrow her phone, now, if she'd just  _ let _ me use it...” he considered this a moment. “Well, I suppose I didn't ask! Silly me.”

Dave shifted nervously where he stood and said nothing.

“Wouldn't you say that was rather silly of me, citizen? You should, you should say it was silly of me. You should say a _lot_ of things. Your friend, the scientist who came out to see me earlier? _She_ said a lot of things. And she's still saying them, I think!"

As he rose to his feet again, Dave tried to pick up the bat to defend himself. Kevin didn't stop him from grabbing it.

"I think you should be _more_ like your friend. What was her name?"

Dave swallowed the lump in his throat. "W-was?"

"Oh, you know, I think you're right! She isn't dead yet. What is-- _is_ \--her name? The nice one, that came out to see me! I really did like her." Kevin continued to advance on Dave, pursuing him out into the hallway. "She liked me, too. I told her about the Smiling God, and she saw the light! And really, what else can you ask for?"

In self-defense, Dave raised the bat with shaky hands, but Kevin showed no signs of intimidation, nor would it have made sense for him to be afraid.

"You need to g-get the fuck out of here," Dave stammered.

Kevin sighed, "Oh, no, I don't think you understand. I'm not going anywhere! Look--your friend, she's even coming to talk to you, I can tell."

Dave noticed Rachelle's advance only once Kevin had mentioned it. He wasn't sure how she'd found them, he knew she'd been stark raving mad when she returned, only hours ago. And she'd been staying with that Avery kid, Carlos' assistant, and they were trying to calm her down. It must not have worked.

Rachelle's labcoat was smeared with blood.

"Wh-what--what did--" Dave couldn't get anything intelligent out of his mouth, and before he had much of a chance to keep trying, Kevin snatched the bat from his hands. With it, he knocked Dave clean off his feet and onto the tile floor of the hallway.

Kevin's tone, as he spoke, was as disconnectedly cheerful as ever. "Now, I know what you're thinking, _why_ would I hit you when you weren't doing anything?" He laughed. "That's a great question, citizen. And here's the answer:"

He swung again, this time at Dave's head, and knocked him out.

* * *

Within a matter of hours, Cecil and Carlos had canvassed the city to find a radio station that might give Cecil half a chance to go on the air. Their success rate was, understandably, not too terribly high.

Sitting outside the Half-Moon Cafe with his face in his hands, Carlos expressed doubt that they'd ever get anyone to listen. "There's.. there's a Void in the middle of town and... some _lunatic_ has all of my students, my coworkers... why won't anyone _listen_?"

Cecil paced past the table and back again, restless. "They don't understand. Nobody understands _anything,_ sweet Carlos. But you understand, and I understand, and we _will_ find a way to talk to them. If I must, I will form a broadcast of my own--I _did_ get my subversive radio host badge when I was a boyscout, you know. I know how to do it."

Carlos peered up at him, from between his fingers. "You what...?"

"I could simply make my own radio station. I _know_ , then what if people don't _listen_ , but it's alright. I know they will. If it's important, people will listen to you." Cecil, despite repeated failures and one tiny radio station actually chasing him out with threats of violence, somehow hadn't lost hope in making his voice heard.

His optimism wasn't reaching Carlos. "If they don't change to your station, then what good is it? We _needed_ one of the real stations--"

Cecil interrupted, "Then we can return, and try again."

"They already said no, Cecil. We can't just keep asking," he pointed out.

With the edge of a smirk, bordering on devious, Cecil replied, "If I wanted to, I could be much better at asking than you are. I mean, I _can_ be very persuasive, if I'm trying." He stopped his pacing for a moment to stand next to the table.

Carlos frowned, unsure. "What, your influence?"

"I believe that in some cases, someone influential may help proper decisions be made, Carlos," he said plainly.

Carlos considered the idea in silence, uncertain. His lack of a response prompted further input from Cecil: the desert was dangerous. People could fall into the Void. There was so much that could just go so terribly wrong, so many things that they needed to warn people about. It was _dangerous_ , honestly. Dangerous.

"Okay, okay, I get it," Carlos complained at the long stream of explanations. "It's... important to protect people, so nobody else gets hurt. I guess it's okay, then. If you use your influence to protect people."

Cecil laughed lightly and crouched in front of Carlos. "Oh, Carlos. I always use my influence to protect people." He reached out to brush his fingers against Carlos' cheek, a small smile on his face. "I would dream of no better use for it. I wouldn't dare to dream of it."

Watching Cecil, Carlos' expression softened, his unease ebbing away. "I... guess it makes sense, yeah. That makes sense."

As he rose to his feet again, Cecil stopped for a moment before he'd straightened up fully and planted a kiss on Carlos' forehead. "Now, then. We need to find the biggest radio station, and talk to them. Talk sweetly. Whisper in their ears. They'll let me have a word or two with the listening public, I'm sure of it."

Carlos nodded dumbly, then realized he was supposed to be getting up now, too. He added his own input of who he thought the biggest station was--which he didn't really know for sure, but it was the only one he'd even _heard_ of, since he didn't listen to much radio--and then Cecil was leading the way back.

They'd already stepped into the What It Is Community Radio Station earlier in the day and been scolded for interrupting a broadcast. Neither had made the best first impression, and their wild conspiracy theory about voids and deserts--

(Nobody saw the Void, wasn't that something that Cecil had said? People kept forgetting the Void? Did he just remember it because he was talking to Cecil?)

\--was good for a laugh, but honestly, it wasn't worth wasting the time of the listeners. They wanted music, they wanted traffic reports, they wanted to know what was going on in the actual world around them, and not some delirious page out of a science fiction novel.

Cecil had left in a huff after they questioned whether he was truly a radio professional. Now, only a few hours later, they returned with a vengeance.

Carlos hesitated at the door, like the thought of Cecil brainwashing people into letting him use their radio equipment had become worse all at once, the moment he remembered that there were going to be actual people involved. Still, despite his hesitation, Cecil didn't think twice. He waltzed right into the station like he owned the place.

A couple of young interns were bobbing about the station, one appeared to be tending to the matter of fetching coffee while the other checked out photos of cats on her cell phone. It was this first one that accosted Cecil quickly.

"Hey, look, you aren't supposed to like, be in here?" he remarked, almost uncertainly. "I mean I get that we're like open to the public and people can come and chill if they don't go into the broadcast room and _okay_ so you're technically part of the public but like also you totally pissed off Mx. Mitchell so I mean..."

He trailed off, his expression going slack after a few moments of staring at Cecil too closely. Cecil sighed and replied to him, "I was only here to apologize to the host of this lovely little station. You can understand the desire to make amends, right? We all want to make amends at some point in our lives, before our lives end."

Carlos, watching from a few feet away, was consciously aware of how easily Cecil's remarks seemed to sidetrack into the absurd. The intern didn't seem to notice a thing, however, and nodded with almost too much enthusiasm. "Yeah, of course, man."

"Would you mind telling Mx. Mitchell that I wish to speak with them?" Cecil requested. "When there is a break in their current broadcast, of course. As a radio professional, I would hate to cut in on the middle of a pressing story."

The intern Cecil had spoken to was agreeing to this, while the other had risen from her seat and slipped away into some other room of the station. Neither intruder noticed this until she returned with a short, stocky man following after her, who would call himself the Station Management.

Almost immediately upon the arrival of Station Management, something in Cecil's demeanor seemed to change. The cool confidence he strolled in with crumbled away to a very obvious unease. The older man didn't even get to speak before Cecil had apparently already formed a very negative opinion of him.

With the shift in Cecil's attitude, the intern who'd taken a shining to him seemed to grow uneasy, just the same.

Station Management sounded calm, when he addressed Cecil and Carlos. "Now, I hear you boys wanted to talk to our announcer? I had heard earlier that you were giving her trouble about some... _real_ strange things you said were going on."

"Yes. Yes--uh." Cecil, for once, couldn't get his words out smoothly. They tumbled out into a mess, more than anything. "The Void, out where the University was located. Surely you've noticed it. Somebody must have noticed it."

He laughed, "Void? Do you mean...the University, where the University is located? I don't know what _Void_ you're talking about." At least Mx. Mitchell had addressed the situation with the sort of ridicule reserved for conspiracy theorists. The management simply thought it was some kind of sorry joke.

His denial seemed to rub Cecil the wrong way. "The Void. Everyone must have seen the Void by now--people have fallen _in_ , the Void is _there_. I know they've fallen in, and nobody has even put a fence up! But--that isn't important, right now. What is important... what is _absolutely_ important, is that I need to warn the citizens of... what is coming."

"Well, what's coming then?" the management asked. He wasn't paying any mind to the intern approaching him with a malicious look in his eyes. Cecil wasn't watching, either. He wasn't even watching the older man's face.

"Potentially? The vast expanse of the desert and a Smiling God, in fast pursuit. You aren't safe here. Nobody is safe anywhere, but you, in particular, are not safe here, in particular." Cecil's tone was grave.

Carlos noticed the intern's advance on Station Management first, and grabbed the young man's hand before he could raise it to attack. He'd pulled out a pen. He was going to try to stab his boss with a pen. With his trajectory interrupted, he reeled to attack Carlos instead.

"Hey, stop!" he snapped, less at the intern than at Cecil, who switched his focus quickly to grabbing the intern away from Carlos.

It took a few moments for the young man to calm back down, struggling against Cecil's grip as well. Then he quit struggling. His expression went blank. Station Management watched this all in bewildered silence, taking several steps back from the lot of them.

"Something weird's going on," the second intern whispered to him. He silently agreed.

When Cecil stopped holding onto the influenced intern, he fell to his knees, rendered completely blank for the time being. A thin stream of blood began to drip from his nose.

"We need to go." Carlos grabbed Cecil by the wrist, ignoring the tingle from their contact--it was getting less dramatic, anyway. Cecil watched him a moment with an expression that didn't look appropriate, it didn't look natural on his face at all. He was _enjoying_ this, somehow, like he'd planned it. It was like something had gone wrong in him.

His voice came out smooth as ever, and Carlos was beginning to pick up on the subtle hint that he was being influenced, when he felt Cecil's words tugging at him. "There's no reason to leave here, sweet Carlos. We did come here with a mission, you realize. Somebody needs to get the information to the listeners. They need to know what's coming."

Carlos tried to look away. "Stop--stop. Enough is enough."

"No. Enough _isn't_ enough until it _is_ enough," Cecil insisted, and he turned to face Station Management again, voice coming out threatening. "You don't intimidate me. Even with your position. You have seen _nothing_ of what real Station Management is like. You're just a tiny man, tiny and insignificant and full of blood and fear."

As he advanced on Station Management, the expression that crossed the short man's face was indeed one of fear. He gestured to the remaining intern to flee--she did as she was told. She wasn't stupid, and he recognized that the attack was at him and not her.

"Please, I don't know what I've done to you, stranger, but I didn't mean to." His words came out very differently now, he wasn't laughing, he wasn't making any jokes. Terror dripped out of every syllable as he stared up at Cecil's scowl and the unblinking stare of his third eye, maybe staring deep into his core.

Cecil laughed, "It's simple, really. You are standing in the way of my work. The listeners need to know about the Void. They need to know what to _expect_." He grabbed the man's wrist. "We need to prepare ourselves, as a community--"

"Cecil _stop!_ " Carlos snapped, trying to jerk him away from the terrified little man.

The reaction that followed, he couldn't have imagined in his wildest dreams. Without tearing his gaze or his grip from Station Management, Cecil's tattoos seemed to rise up off of him, black tendrils of smoke that formed quickly into extra appendages, tentacles that shot out and gripped Carlos, jerking him roughly back so he couldn't keep tugging at Cecil's hands.

Station Management screamed. Carlos struggled desperately against the grip tightening around his torso, the feeling completely electric, like Cecil's normal touch magnified.

He was seeing stars by the time a voice interrupted the scene, and he couldn't immediately recognize where it was coming from, but he'd heard it maybe once or twice on the radio, before.

"What the fuck is going on out here?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and just like that, all at once, I've descended into violence. neat.
> 
> my final exams are over, so hopefully that means updates are going to be a bit more consistent from now on! I'm looking forward to playing around a lot more with these characters, and wow, look, I'm starting to populate the town with random individuals.
> 
> thank you all for comments/kudos, as always. you all rock!


	14. The Spectacle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conflict in the What It Is Community Radio Station escalates when the host comes out to face the fact that radio hosts from other towns can be pretty weird.

 Mx. Mitchell was a gangly figure, taller than everyone in the room save for Cecil, but she wasn't weak, and she wasn't afraid when she stepped out into the station lobby and caught sight of the spectacle that Cecil was at the center of. The familiar figures squirming in his tentacled grip, in a panic.

Cecil just looked over at her with a crooked grin and told her to leave.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" she snapped at him. "Is this some stupid prank? What the hell are those?"

She walked right up to him and grabbed hold of one of the long black appendages and gave it a sharp yank. Cecil winced, and a different tentacle came around and slapped her right off her feet. For a few moments, she lay dazed on the floor.

"You need to stop. Cecil you n-need to stop," Carlos stammered out, fighting against the haze that was trying to take the present away from him. Station Management had gone silent, though he continued to struggle even in silence. The intern on the floor still hadn't moved. The second intern was gone.

Mx. Mitchell sat up and rubbed her face where she'd been slapped. As the realization slowly dawned on her that she wasn't looking at some elaborate costume, she tried to count how many limbs he would've needed to pull off such a prank.

Two arms. Two legs. Eight tentacles, flailing about, now gripping at her ankles as she tried to claw at the floor to escape his grasp.

"Cecil. Cecil Cecil Cecil." Carlos became a broken record, hoping that he'd say the man's name enough that he'd snap out of whatever the hell state he'd entered. He realized enough to know that, while he wasn't being released, Cecil meant him no harm. The fates of Station Management and the hapless radio host were less certain.

She slapped at his tentacles until he bound her arms against her sides, "Let me go! Let me go, what the fuck what _are_ you? What the hell _are_ you?" Mx. Mitchell put up the same sort of struggle as Station Management, but much more vocally.

Which might have been good, because it meant that Cecil responded to her. "Me? I'm nothing. Nothing special. Though from one radio professional to another, the screaming is _really_ terribly unprofessional." His voice sounded too low, too hollow. It didn't sound right at all. But he was talking, and maybe that was a sign that someone could talk sense into him.

"Professional!" she huffed, "What the fuck. What the fuck. _You_ aren't professional, you're--I don't even know what you are! A--a monster, some kind of... demon? What the hell!"

Cecil laughed darkly. "You wound me."

Then he tightened his grip to wound _her_. She let out a cry; Carlos started trying again to desperately catch Cecil's attention, with the sinking feeling that he was only being held to keep him from getting in the way.

"Don't, Cecil, don't, we came here to talk to them! We came here to talk, so we can help the town, we want to _help_ people, Cecil, you said you wanted to help too." He hoped the accusation in his voice would catch Cecil's attention. It didn't.

With the threat that the monstrous man was planning to crush both Station Management (who had now slipped away into unconsciousness) and the sobbing radio host, Carlos did the last thing he could think to distract Cecil without fail.

Knowing he was taking his life into his own hands, he bit down hard on the tentacle that was coiled around his shoulders. Cecil let out a cry of pain and dropped Carlos, spinning on his heels to face him, expression twisted between anger and heartbreak at the betrayal.

Carlos spat, the taste of salt thick on his tongue like seawater. Cecil's blood was nearly black, and the look on his face as he approached Carlos was mixed. He pulled the scientist to his feet, looked him over, and spoke.

"You bit me."

The words in Carlos' head were repeating some mantra that he'd gone and gotten himself killed, he was going to be dead at any moment. Calmly as he could, he replied, "You need to let them go, Cecil."

"You bit me!" he replied, offended. In defiance, he refused to release Mx. Mitchell or Station Management, but it seemed he'd loosened his grip, because the radio host was pausing in her struggle to take deep breaths now that it was possible.

Carlos tried to explain himself, "I _had_ to bite you, you weren't paying _any_ attention to me. Also, I hope it didn't hurt too much. I'm sorry if it did."

Visibly upset, Cecil pointed out, "Of course it hurt, why would you _do_ that? You could have just called my name, I would have listened. You don't have to _bite_ me, Carlos." The wounded tentacle came forward to wave in Carlos' face, like he was trying to rub the man's face in his mistake. "Look. It's bleeding. You took a chunk out of me."

He shoved Cecil's tentacle out of his face. "You weren't responding. And I didn't take a chunk out of you."

"Yes, you did!" At the very least, Cecil's voice was slowly returning to normal. Carlos questioned if he'd even been aware of the shift as it had happened, but it was likely Cecil had no idea. He didn't seem to know, anyway.

Carlos massaged his temples, trying to keep his voice level, because it was better than getting into an actual argument. "I didn't. Look--please set them down. Let me see the wound if you're worried about it. But set them down first."

Looking perhaps a bit embarrassed, Cecil lowered the two to the ground and released them. Carlos watched most of the tentacles as they reverted back into tattoos, seeming to dissolve away into smoke as they took their concealed shape again. He could trace the origins of the extra appendages to vanishing somewhere beneath Cecil's clothes; he was considering what it would be like to see Cecil without his clothes when the wounded tentacle slapped him in the face to catch his attention.

"You took a chunk out of me, _look_. See?" Cecil protested, holding the slick tentacle up by Carlos' face, so he could see where he'd bitten and left a bloody wound, still dripping that same blackish blood that almost tasted like the ocean. Carlos reached out to cradle the wounded tentacle and inspect it, but of course touching it sent jolts of energy up through his arms.

He tried not to let it show that he was feeling it, but it was distracting, he was prodding gently at the wounds, and there certainly hadn't been any chunks taken out of anything, it was just a few holes from how hard he'd bit, and he did feel terrible about it.

Cecil watched him in quiet fascination, his indignation from before fading away as he really just wanted to see how the man was reacting now. He seemed to have simply accepted it as completely logical, right off the bat.

"Well, I didn't bite any chunks out of you," Carlos confirmed. "Just like I said. It's a bit bloody, but I think it should be fine.”

After he released the tentacle, he expected to see it pull away and vanish just like the others had, but it didn't even move. Rather, it stayed pretty close by his face.

Carlos frowned up at Cecil, “Um, I said it's fine. Are you okay, Cecil? What's going on, anyway? I didn't even know about these, um...” he trailed off at the devilish little smile Cecil was giving him. “What? What are you--”

“You should kiss it better,” Cecil suggested, the tentacle pushing itself at Carlos' mouth quick enough to interrupt him mid-sentence.

Stammering over his protests, Carlos was about to give up and just do it when Mx. Mitchell spoke up and interrupted the moment.

“Are you fucking _kidding_ me?” she snapped. “You...you come in here, you fuck with my interns, you fuck with my boss, and now you... what? What is this, some crazy tentacle kink with your boyfriend?”

They both turned to face her; she'd already carefully dragged Station Management to lean up against the wall furthest from Cecil and Carlos and was now crouched by the unconscious intern, with his head pulled into her lap. Blood was still dripping from his nose, and the radio host had a defensive grip on him even as she tempted fate by yelling at the intruders.

Carlos looked to Cecil, afraid of what might happen, but instead found that the man's face had lit up at her comments.

“You think we look like boyfriends?” he asked.

“Cecil, that's not--” Carlos began, only to end up with a tentacle in his face again. He sighed in defeat and kissed it. It curled back toward Cecil and pulled under the labcoat he was wearing, still visible there, and Carlos found it odd that he didn't just turn it back into a tattoo again, but he wasn't going to ask about it.

Mx. Mitchell was still scowling at them. “Listen. Is this still about that brainless fucking Void thing you were talking about?”

He replied, “The Void is hardly brainless, and I take offense at that implication.”

“Do you even speak the same language? It's a figure of—nevermind. I don't even care, I am not even going to argue if a...hole has sentience.” She rolled her eyes. “What the hell do you want me to do about a big hole in the ground?”

Cecil began to protest, “The Void isn't a hole in the ground—”

But Carlos interrupted. “Somebody needs to put a fence up, to keep people from falling into the Void. And, um, we wanted to ask if we could use the radio to maybe, I guess, talk to people about some things because Cecil says he needed to warn the town.”

“Warn us?” She laughed sharply. “Warn us about yourself, I'm hoping. Why the hell would I give you even a _second_ on my radio show?”

Carlos was ready to try holding him back again, but he just laughed back at her and replied in the smooth, friendly voice that Carlos wasn't sure was coming back, “Why, think of the publicity. Everyone in town knows who I am, of course, nobody _actually_ knows who I am. Imagine, a strange newcomer in town, and of every radio station, you interview me first.”

“Are you...trying to sell yourself to me as some sort of freakshow attraction now?" Her voice was laced with disbelief. "Are you nuts? What _are_ you?"

He shrugged. "They... called me the Voice of Night Vale, back home? I'm Cecil Palmer. I'm... a radio professional. And I'm concerned, so very concerned for this tiny little town. I mean, I'm concerned for _all_ my potential listeners, it's sort of my schtick, right? But I mean, most people aren't in any more immediate danger now than any other day, but you all are. In grave danger. _Grave_ danger."

Mx. Mitchell stared at him as he babbled on, and her expression shifted slowly over to one of resignation; she wasn't going to be getting out of this. He would talk her to death, or he would whip out those tentacles of his again and crush her and everyone else.

"Fine. You want to talk to my listeners, okay. What do you even want to talk to them about? You're dancing around the issue. You keep saying all this bullshit like, do you ever listen to yourself talk, Cecil? Or is that all you're ever doing?" She got up, carefully picking her intern up off the ground to carry over to a chair and at least get him off the floor.

"We need to put up a fence around the Void," Cecil explained, and before either Carlos or the radio host could interrupt, he continued, "And everyone needs to know what might be coming out of it. The Smiling God has found its way to me before, and now, there's... a small army stuck in the desert, in easy reach. I mean, we _really_ don't want that coming back through the Void to us. It won't end well."

Carlos stammered out, "An army? There's..an army by the University? I thought you said the desert was _empty,_ Cecil. Empty means there isn't an army!"

"Oh, Carlos, I'm sorry," he replied, approaching to take his companion's face in his hands. "I'm so, so sorry. But the University _is_ an army, if the Smiling God has already found it."

He said nothing, watching Cecil in silence. For being the one who wasn't even personally affected by the whole disaster, Cecil's expression was more twisted and saddened than anyone else in the room, and maybe he was feeling bad for Carlos more than anything, or something. He leaned in and tried to give Carlos a kiss, only Carlos pulled away.

"Not...not right now," he muttered, which at least wasn't a solid no. Cecil didn't try again, filing away that he could try later.

Mx. Mitchell was equally relieved that they weren't going to start kissing again. "Okay. You want to talk to my listeners? Fine. But, it's on my terms. You're _my_ guest, and if you say anything I don't like, you're off the mic. Is that clear?"

Cecil nodded. "Absolutely."

"Well, come on then," she grumbled, making her way to toward the broadcasting booth again. "Let's get this freakshow on the road."

The duo followed, Cecil taking hold of Carlos' hand as they went. Underneath the borrowed labcoat, the faint twitch of a tentacle was visible curled up against his chest. Blackish blood had started to soak through. He wasn't drawing attention to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, here we are, we have arrived at the point where Cecil is going to finally touch a microphone. and we all know that means something or other is going to probably change about the whole situation.
> 
> as usual, thank you guys for reading! c:


	15. Professionals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil finally gets his voice out on the airwaves, to warn the town about the dangers that lie ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gore warning. just saying.

 The broadcast was set to resume after a good chunk of music, most of which had played out during the earlier confrontation. Mx. Mitchell had missed a number of ad slots she was supposed to be slipping in; she'd come to regret that later, she figured, but maybe not as bad as she'd have regretted letting Cecil kill her boss, or whatever he'd been planning.

She was still watching him quite uneasily, as he sat by the guest microphone, admiring it as though he'd never been the _guest_ on a radio show before, so what an interesting experience it was going to be.

Once the final song ended, she skipped the opportunity to make up for lost advertisements, and simply started straight into talking.

"Ladies and gents, those eagle-eyed among you might've noticed I dropped the ball on ads, this last chunk of music. Well, consider that my early gift to you for--whatever holiday you celebrate, whenever you celebrate it. Happy nonspecified holiday."

"Anyway," she continued, "I know I've already done a guest segment today, and we all loved talking to the owner of that quaint new bakery, but someone new has come to town, come into my tiny little radio station, and all but _demanded_ to have a word with you all. Oh, I know I've heard _plenty_ of words shared in his direction, and I think you all know who I'm talking about. If you don't, you've got plenty of time to catch up with the rest of us; we're all scratching our heads at the newcomer, the freakshow, that guy with three eyes, join me in welcoming to the studio right now, the infamous Cecil Palmer."

She winked over at Cecil to signal that he was allowed to speak; she'd been very clear about telling him not to talk until he was told to. For a few moments, her blunt introduction left him somewhat stunned, but he recovered relatively smoothly.

"Hello listeners," he spoke into the guest mic. "I'm honored to be here talking to you all right now, I'm honored to have you all listening."

Mx. Mitchell continued on, "Now, Cecil here says he's been a radio host before, himself. Is that true, Cecil? What exactly did you even _report_ on in this...where did you say you were from, again?"

"Night Vale. I worked at the Night Vale Community Radio for...well, a _really_ long time, longer than I can keep track of, really! I mean, what did I report on? Normal radio things, I guess? Traffic, breaking news, the weather..." he trailed off with a shrug. "Normal radio things."

She laughed lightly, "Hard to imagine things were that normal where you came from. Now, if you don't mind me asking, does _everyone_ back in uh, Night Vale, have extra eyes, or is that just your thing?" She kept pushing questions faster than he could try to derail the topic, whether she was buying time to think of a different plan or this _was_ her plan, he wasn't sure.

Still, the topics of the questions left Cecil feeling uneasy, and Carlos would have protested if he hadn't been sent out to sit in the lobby--

("Only radio professionals allowed beyond this point." "But you have guests in all the time!" "Well, too bad.")

\--but as it stood, nobody was there defending Cecil. He tried to take control of the situation as well as he could: he gave her more of what she wanted.

"Ah, I haven't met anyone else with a third eye. It's somewhat unique to me, Mx. Mitchell. I would say it has come with some rather interesting effects though. You might even be interested in knowing what my third eye is good for!"

She raised an eyebrow, confused how easily he'd decided to simply start spilling out information. "Oh? And what might that be?"

Cecil laughed darkly, "With it, I can see into the Void, and understand."

"Ah, the Void thing," she grumbled. "Ladies and gents, our new friend here, he's apparently a budding novelist. Interesting stuff he writes about, too. Voids, deserts, gods that are smiling a lot or something. Where do you find the inspiration for all of your stories, Cecil?"

"Well, I simply look around me," he replied without missing a beat. "There's a lot of inspiration in the real world, in things that are _really_ happening, I don't even need to look for inspiration anywhere else. In fact, I _love_ to tell stories about things that are happening."

Mx. Mitchell stared him down as she replied, level, "I imagine you must have, as a radio announcer. I don't know where you found the time for both hobbies, Cecil. Color me impressed."

He laughed lightly, "You needn't be impressed, Mx. Mitchell. I am but a humble radio host, reporting on things that are actually happening. Anyone can do it, if the fates align and they survive being an intern long enough."

"Was it difficult interning in this Night Vale place, then?" she asked.

"Oh, very difficult," Cecil agreed, "I suppose I only survived because of the prophecy, but I _have_ seen a few others survive, over the years. I still talk to some of them. Well, the ones that are still alive now, it _has_ been a pretty long while since my first interns."

She hesitated, but dared to ask, "And how long have you been a radio host, then? Because honestly, Cecil, you look younger than me. I mean, ladies and gents, I know you aren't here looking at him, but you've seen him around, I have no doubt. Cecil, you can't be a day over twenty-five. Be honest with me."

His tone was surprisingly dark, "I don't know if you really want my honesty, if you understand my meaning. A day over twenty-five? You could say I am many, _many_ days over twenty-five. As to _how_ many? Perhaps neither you nor I know. Perhaps nobody knows. Perhaps nobody ever _should_ know. Perhaps it would be dangerous to know."

"Um," was all she could say for several moments, realizing that it was getting harder to try and break off his rambling. "Well, I guess maybe you aren't as young as I thought, then. You look great for your age, I guess?"

Cecil's face brightened, "Thank you, Mx. Mitchell. I do try to keep a fresh appearance."

"Well, it shows."

For several moments, neither of them said a thing. She was trying to stare Cecil down, communicate something with her eyes to make him stop trying to derail the interview, but it was hard to keep eye contact for too long. He spoke next, without asking her permission, and she said nothing for a while as his voice washed over her, hypnotic.

"Thank you again," he remarked. "Now, I know none of you are actually interested in my youthful beauty routine, listeners. Well, maybe some of you are. But I'm not actually here to tell you about that, so, sorry! In fact, I came here to talk to you all about something a little more important, that I _know_ we've all seen, but I mean, _maybe_ you just don't want to admit you've seen it? Listen, we've all been there, we've all known things we felt like we weren't supposed to know. And sometimes, we weren't! But I'm here to tell you, the Void is real."

He leaned in closer to the microphone, and as he spoke, stared straight into the confused radio host. "Now, many of you might be asking what I'm talking about. The Void? Of course we know the Void is real, you might say. We all know that the sky vanishes away into an endless abyss above us. And you would be right. But this isn't the Void I'm speaking of."

"This Void," he continued, "Or rather, this fraction of the Void, may be more properly found in the place where your University used to sit. That University, I am afraid, has gone somewhere else, and rather than clean up after itself and leave the place the way it was when it arrived, it simply left a rift, instead. It left nothing. And this nothing, as I'm sure you have noticed but been afraid to acknowledge, has a pretty strong pull to it."

"So, I think we would all agree that a fence should go up around the old University property. A very tall one. Solid. Wooden. With signs to warn against entering, and a padlock on the gate that nobody has the key to. I think we all understand that this would be for the best."

Finally, the woman across from him regained her bearings enough to jump back into the broadcast, "Um, thanks for that, Cecil. I'm sure everyone appreciates your fascinating storytelling just as much as I do."

He shook his head, "I'm afraid it isn't storytelling, Mx. Mitchell, this is why I'm here. I want only to warn you, listeners, of what may be coming. There is a desert on the other side of that Void, and one which we must try to never enter. One which we must try to never let anything _leave_. In that desert stands a man, a man who is very much like me, I suppose much like any of us, but most of all like me. But he is nothing, _nothing_ at all like me, because this man, oh, this _wicked_ man, he will say things to you, listeners, but they will not be to protect you. He will _not_ protect you, and he will not warn you."

"No, dear listeners," he continued, voice becoming more serious, more stern. "He will come to your town, as he came to mine, as he has come to many others, and he will enter into your lives with kindness, with cheerful words, with a... _smile_ that is not a smile. He will enter into your hearts with his lies, and you will think that he means well, but he is _wicked_. I promise you this. He came to my tiny town of Night Vale before, and if we had not been prepared to assemble with heavy classic literature and fight back, this man and his... his people would have done far worse to us than they did."

"And--and what was it they did?" Mx. Mitchell asked, no longer trying to dismiss his story or shut him up. No, she was curious, if this man was anything like Cecil, what he was capable of. Maybe in a way, it was what the strange being seated across from her was capable of, and the knowledge could be indispensable.

He replied solemnly, "They brought... capitalism, _maddened_ capitalism to our tiny town. Buying, selling, buying, selling. They held us in work camps, and that was the fate of those of us _fortunate_ enough to be held alive. I was only narrowly able to escape from the camps, myself, and oh, listeners, I didn't know if I would ever see true freedom. As I sat barricaded into my old station, with hollow-eyed office workers beating at my door, I was _afraid_. Afraid for my town of Night Vale, afraid for my listeners, afraid for what would happen to _me_ if I were caught, if I were taken from my station once again."

"I only want to protect all of you, I want to know that this won't happen again. This is why I'm _here_ right now, talking to you, letting you all hear my voice. We need to prepare ourselves, listeners. There is a Smiling God coming for us, and we do not want it."

"A Smiling God? That's not the first time you've said that," the other host remarked. "What, exactly, is a Smiling God?"

Cecil replied grimly, "A monstrous, wicked thing.”

* * *

 

Kevin looked up at the dressing room mirror with a scowl on his face for just a moment. No, no, no. The greaser outfit just simply wouldn't do. The theater kids needed _better_ clothing for him to borrow.

Cowering in the corner, one of the students jumped up to his aid when he called to them, "Citizens! This is unacceptable. What else is there to wear?"

The boy who ran over was offering their next sacrifice: a King Arthur costume, quite expensive and delicately done with real metal armor and a red velvet cape. Kevin took hold of the cape and surveyed it with his blacked out eyes, and then jerked it out of the boy's hands so that everything he was holding fell on the floor.

"Whoops. Now you're going to just have to pick it up and find me something _better_. Stop wasting my time, you're ruining not just your own productivity, but mine as well." He waved a hand dismissively at the boy, who grabbed most of the costume and scurried away as the next student ran over, next outfit for donation: Aladdin.

Kevin didn't even grace that one with his judgment, but turned to the whole group. "No. I am a _professional_ , and I'm going to be your boss. Do you want your boss parading around in... velvet and sequins? And robes? I need something commanding. Business-oriented. Don't make me explain to you again what happens if you don't comply with company dress code."

A collective shudder went through the group of mute college students; they'd already seen a few of their own turned into decorations on the walls. Now, it was all the game of survival, staying silent, and hoping that somebody was going to please Kevin well enough that he would leave them alone to live another day.

The young man who ran up to him next offered a mad scientist outfit, labcoat and all. He frowned down at this. "Do you think I'm a _scientist_? That isn't my job description."

"I-I'm sorry," he stammered out as Kevin advanced on him, ready to make another example for the class. "I'm s-sorry I thought it was m-more professional!"

Kevin grabbed him roughly by the wrist and pulled him closer, staring straight into his eyes with the empty black pools that were his own, still dripping ink down his face. "Do you think you're being funny?" he asked. "Do you really think that? I don't think you're being funny, wasting company time like this."

He shook his head, but words wouldn't come out, and nobody was coming to his rescue. They were all in it to save themselves. Silent, watching anything but the spectacle about to unfold in front of them.

The first thing he saw was the knife, as Kevin slipped it from his pocket with a grin. "Now, the first thing wrong with your attire is your face. I don't think you understand just how offensive that frown is, but it is. Very. Offensive," he explained cheerfully as he sort of danced the young man toward the nearest bloodied wall, to pin him.

Everything was like some fun little act to Kevin, but the student he'd pinned was struggling, begging, pleading for mercy, crying. It was a shame, really, that he couldn't struggle _better_ , Kevin thought that reflected poorly on his value for the company. At least one of the students from before had tried to bite one of his fingers off.

Kevin laughed, "Now, that's not the right attitude to have at all! Happy tears, my good friend. Only happy tears, now." He reached up, one hand to steady the young man's face, the other wielding the knife, and began to work on a nice, new smile. Bigger than the last smile. So much bigger, better, wider.

In the corner of the room, students cried out while others quieted them. One tried to creep away from the group, and only got a few feet before Kevin dropped his current project, on the spot, and spun around to face them.

"Well, aren't _you_ just a great example of a _bad_ employee." He still sounded cheerful as he said it, somehow. Kevin began advancing on the miscreant, knife raised, ready to make a whole new example for the other future workers.

Well, the workers who had a future.

Only, he reached out to grab the student and they slapped his hand away. "Don't fucking touch me!" they snapped.

Pleasantly surprised, Kevin laughed, "Oh, you're going to fight me? Are you all going to fight me, then? I would like to see you try."

He gestured for the students to come at him, and yet nobody did. They stood frozen to their spots, staring at him, waiting for someone else to make a move before they dared risk themselves. Nobody wanted to be the only one attacking.

Not against something like Kevin.

With a sigh, he turned his focus back to the student who'd slapped him away, "Then I suppose you fight me alone, don't you? I'm excited, personally, for this opportunity. I hope you're excited, too."

But the student didn't try to attack again; they tried to make a break for it. Almost instantly, something wound around their ankles and tugged them to the ground, thick black appendages materialized quickly, like a well-practiced trick in the name of battle.

There were only five of them, but five was more than enough. The rebellious student hardly had a chance to scream before they were torn limb from limb in front of their classmates, with Kevin's melodic humming as background music amidst the sobbing of his last, smiling example, and another student losing their lunch at the scene.

 Kevin tore into the lifeless torso of his victim, pulling out glistening viscera to throw about the floor and hang from the lighting fixtures in the cramped little backstage room. He was improving the decoration, of course; there was no reason he couldn't make an example _and_ a design statement at the same time.

When he was finished decorating, Kevin whipped a severed arm into the crowd, just for good measure. The screaming was music to his ears. "Now, does anybody else want to try and run away from me?"

Kevin laughed at the silence. "No?"

"I didn't think so."

He turned back toward the mirror and began to strip out of the outfit they'd given him, down to boxers and his scarred and heavily inked skin, tattoos shimmering like gold against his sun-darkened skin. The tentacles dissolved back into nothing. None of them matched the geometric designs tattooed onto his skin, the sunbeams etched over his shoulderblades.

"Now. Somebody else. Get me a _real_ outfit. Business-like. I want to be ready when I face my new workers," he ordered the group.

"Chop to it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now we're finally getting somewhere, and the story may take a far more split-chapter approach, on and off, it just depends on how many different   
> scenarios I choose to follow after. I'm both horrified and amused at writing Kevin, so that's always fun.  
> fun fact: i typoed "hop to it" at the very end, and made probably the best malaphor possible for Kevin. I'm good with that.
> 
> as usual, thanks for comments and love! you're all great. I mean that. I won't use you to decorate the walls. 8) promise.


	16. Comfortable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos and Cecil go back to Cecil's apartment after the show is over. Cecil receives a phone call, and they chat for a while.

After the broadcast had finished, Mx. Mitchell shooed the intruders out of her station while she handled the situation with her boss, explaining to a disoriented Station Management that something weird had happened, but she'd handled it, and everything was fine, and  _ really _ , Cecil and Carlos needed to  _ leave _ before anything else happened.

Cecil was all too happy to get out of the station, which struck Carlos as a little bit odd, but the man explained once they were out on the sidewalk, "I just don't like that...  _ Station Management _ guy. That's all."

"Why...? He seemed pretty...normal I guess?" Carlos waited for some shocking reveal, something Cecil could see but nobody else could.

Instead, he just got, "Bad experience with past bosses."

"Oh. Right."

They walked in silence for a few minutes, heading toward whatever direction, neither of them had decided yet. Maybe they were heading to Cecil's apartment, that was the only thing Carlos could think of in the direction he was leading them.

"Do you think people are going to listen to what you said?" he asked, looking up at Cecil. In the dying light of the day, strong shadows cast across his face and he looked ragged. But he peered down at Carlos with his most confident expression.

"They will listen, sweet Carlos. They will listen because it's important and because people will listen to anything you can tell them over a radio." He said it like the whole thing was just common sense. Of  _ course _ people would listen--

(Carlos wondered how much the radio played into Cecil's influence. He wondered how much influence Cecil had been pouring into that microphone at all. Would people be listening because they wanted to, or because he told them to?)

\--and it was silly to think that they wouldn't. "I may need to reach out to Mx. Mitchell's listeners again, as the situation develops. There will be a lot of changes, here. The fence should go up soon, if people listen. They will need to prepare themselves in the event that the Smiling God really does come to this little town. We will need to fight back."

Again, silence reigned, this time for a few blocks. They were definitely heading toward Cecil's apartment, it seemed. Maybe he was looking for a change of clothes. The lab coat that he'd borrowed, as well as the shirt underneath, were stained dark and inky.

Carlos frowned, realizing this. It was easy enough to forget that Cecil wasn't bleeding red, easy enough to just think of the stains as paint, or something. He broke the silence to ask, "Are you alright, though? I mean, after earlier. I'm sorry for biting you."

A laugh escaped Cecil's lips, sounding forced. "I'm alright. It was just a very small bite, after all. And you even kissed it better."

"Well, okay, but you're still bleeding," he pointed out, gesturing to the stained front of the lab coat. "Are you sure we shouldn't have someone check that out?"

Cecil's expression hardened, "Carlos, they would dissect me."

“I'm sure they wouldn't,” Carlos insisted. “There are  _ so _ many rules against testing on human subjects, nobody would ever be able to—”

“Hush,” Cecil interrupted. “My sweet, naïve scientist. They would.”

The tone of his voice was final, and so Carlos dropped the subject entirely. Fair enough. Cecil probably had a much better idea of how people would treat him, maybe past horror stories—no, almost  _ definitely _ past horror stories. Carlos wondered just how many times before he nearly  _ had _ been taken apart by people wanting to figure out how he worked.

People who would find it  _ fascinating _ that his blood was like ink, fascinating like Carlos had found it, without feeling any of the guilt that had followed. People who would want to see how his extra appendages attached, he realized he was staring to see if Cecil still had the injured tentacle coiled underneath his shirt, and he did.

And Cecil was aware of his staring, so he looked away.

When they arrived at Cecil's apartment, he offered Carlos the option to stay outside, or come up with him—“It isn't very tidy, however. So you may just want to...stay out here. Wait patiently. Not come up and see the mess.”

Carlos somehow missed the hinting tone in his voice, and rather than take the suggestion to stay outside, he insisted that it couldn't be that bad. “I mean, my apartment isn't great either. I'm sure yours is fine.”

Socially obligated, Cecil led the way upstairs with a sigh. Carlos had struck pretty lucky with his own apartment; it was in a decent part of town, it was only on the second floor, and there was an elevator up to it, to boot. Cecil had settled into a much older building, and they marched up four flights of stairs and arrived at the top, out of breath.

While Cecil fumbled with his keys, Carlos studied the threadbare carpet in the hallway and tried not to stare at Cecil anymore, or anything. Next thing, they were inside the apartment, Cecil leading the way in and closing the door behind them.

It was dark.

“You should get a night light in here,” Carlos complained, scouting along the wall with his hands until he found the light switch. Cecil flinched when the living room lights came blazing on, too-bright overhead fixtures built into the ceiling. He'd been making his way over toward a smaller, less offensive light source and stopped.

“I don't like the overhead lights,” Cecil explained with a sigh. The living room was a mess, and Carlos realized all at once that Cecil really  _ had _ been trying to keep him from coming upstairs, when he took stock of the layer of empty liquor bottles gathered around the base of the couch. A few that hadn't been fully drained sat upright on the coffee table. Cecil's Little Reporter's Book was open where he'd forgotten it the day before.

Neither of them said a word until Cecil was telling him to turn the main lights back off, having turned on table lamp that sat on the floor by his couch. With the lights so dimmed, the whole scene was only more depressing.

Carlos wanted to ask about the alcohol, but he didn't. Cecil excused himself to go and change into something cleaner, and after that, he vanished for a while into the back of the apartment, leaving Carlos to look around the living room, uncomfortable.

Skimming through the open page of the Little Reporter's Book, he found recollection of the conversation he'd been having with Cecil before the man had hurried after him to the University campus, the morning before.

( _ "Listen. We can meet up, by the University. But don't step onto the campus. You will know why, when you get there. Do not go onto the University campus. Do not attempt to investigate until I am there." _

_ "But, Cecil, where did _ )

The pen that Cecil had been writing with was laying on the floor as if he'd flung it when he'd hung up on Carlos, and raced out the door without a second thought. Carlos picked it up and examined it, and it was just a normal ballpoint pen. He tried writing in the notebook. The pen wouldn't work.

He checked the time on his phone a few times before deciding that a half hour was more than enough time to start wondering what was going on, and sought out Cecil, wherever he'd gone. The bathroom was empty, the bloodied lab coat abandoned in a tub full of soap to soak and hopefully come clean.

But he could hear Cecil's voice drifting from his bedroom, quiet and worried in a way that he hadn't shown around Carlos, yet.

“No, I don't  _ know _ if he'll get through again, I know. It probably gets easier, after repeat trials. I know. You already told me that.”

Carlos peered into the room to find Cecil sprawled out on his bed in a state of half-undress, tentacles spilled out over the edges of the mattress and curling on the floor; he'd wrapped the wounded one in gauze, it seemed. And he was talking on his cell phone, staring up at the ceiling and apparently unaware of Carlos' presence.

“This isn't just intern-gets-lost-in-the-desert though, Dana—no, okay, you're right. That's wrong. It wasn't just intern-gets-lost-in-the-desert, that was insensitive. But look, it's not just one person who went through this time. Last time, last time it was luckier. Okay, maybe not luckier for everyone, but luckier,  _ overall _ , for everyone.”

During the pause when Cecil didn't speak, Carlos wished he had the phone on speaker, because he couldn't hear a word of what the other line was saying.

Cecil sighed. “No. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it was lucky you got caught there. I'm glad you got out, Dana. Everyone's glad you got out. Night Vale is glad you got out. I would go so far as to say that your getting out of the desert was a highlight for many of us. Forget that context, then. I want to know whether you think that  _ he _ will find his way out more easily, this time. I think—I  _ worry _ , and we  _ all _ worry—that he will.”

Another silence as she spoke, and he listened. Carlos watched with mild amusement as Cecil pulled off his socks without need of his hands to do so; those tentacles of his must have had amazing dexterity.

“That's what I was worried about. The fence will go up, the entrance to the Void won't be an open hole anymore, but I know there are still doors out. And there's an entire school worth of students there. It would be no Desert Bluffs—but I don't doubt that a Smiling God could be resourceful even with less subjects.”

His next pause finished with a whine, frustrated, and then, “No, but I can't just  _ leave _ everywhere. What do I do, then? What do I say to—oh, Dana, I'm going to have to call you back, actually.” Cecil sat up, having finally noticed the figure standing in his bedroom doorway.

Carlos looked away in embarrassment, but then looked back again a little too quickly, because he was curious and because Cecil wasn't wearing a shirt and because he could see where the tentacles came to connect to the rest of him at his sides, and it looked like, probably along his back for the others.

He barely even noticed the look of utter disappointment on Cecil's face. “How long were you standing there? Some might find that incredibly rude, listening in.”

“Oh. Sorry,” Carlos replied as though he hadn't considered it rude at all.

Cecil shook his head and corrected, "No you aren't sorry. So don't say what you don't mean." He looked down at the phone in his hands. "Dana called back, I was talking to her about getting out of the desert. She um, she said it was... pretty hard..." The way he trailed off suggested that he knew Carlos had heard more than he could lie about.

"Do you think that we're going to be able to get anyone back?" Carlos asked.

All that Cecil could say was, "I don't know, Carlos. Do we ever truly get back anyone who we have lost once? Don't we always remember what it was like, losing them to begin with?"

Carlos frowned. "I'm...not looking for weird philosophy right now, Cecil. I just want to know if I'm going to ever see my friends again."

That was met with silence, and a look of guilt on Cecil's face that he couldn't hide, with no way to just point the question away again. When he finally answered, it was only because Carlos didn't seem likely to talk first, and he wouldn't make eye contact, not even with his third eye (though it was hard to tell where that one was looking).

"We can try, Carlos, but a lot of the people who get caught up with the Smiling God--...they don't come back the same, even if they come back. Sometimes, maybe, they can come back. Sometimes, maybe, none of us can come back from anything." He stared at his knees and trailed off.

Carlos took a seat on the bed next to him, and the lack of an outburst was more than enough to suggest he'd stopped blaming Cecil for what was happening. Instead, Cecil reached over and wrapped an arm around him. Carlos might have been surprised by how subtle the tingling had become, if he was paying enough attention to realize that he was getting used to touching Cecil.

“We will try, Carlos,” he insisted. “We will try, everyone will try. We will get back anyone we can, everyone we can. Everyone who is still there to be rescued. I can make no promises that everyone will be alright—I would not promise that to anyone, because it wouldn't be true. And I won't promise that we will even get everyone back. And the University itself is probably _never_ coming back, but whoever is left can make a new one. I mean, if you really want. Higher education is always a risk all its own, anyway.”

Saying nothing, Carlos just sunk into Cecil's grip, surprisingly comfortable even when a tentacle cautiously prodded at him to see if he would jump. He watched somewhat curiously as one, then another, and still more of them came to wrap up around him in a hug. He listened to Cecil's voice droning on, calming and smooth.

“In the morning, we can try and call somebody from the University, again. I don't know what time it is, there. Time is weird. But tonight, it's getting late here, and we still haven't had any dinner, or anything. It's been a busy day, you've been a good scientist, we've been getting a lot done, I think.”

Carlos nodded and sighed, closing his eyes as Cecil reached up to play with his hair. By now, he knew the certainty that Cecil was trying to project probably wasn't a reflection of any real certainty, and being a scientist, he shouldn't have felt comforted by falsehoods.

But it was nice that he was trying.

Maybe they could've stayed there all night, Carlos tucked comfortably into the cocoon of dark tentacles that Cecil had wrapped him in. He didn't have to move, that terribly. Eating dinner was probably a bit overrated, he wasn't sure he even had an appetite, in light of everything that had been happening.

Cecil was the one who had to move, first, and it was clearly unwilling. He didn't want to move Carlos off his lap, he didn't want to stop playing with his long, beautiful hair. But he carefully pushed Carlos off onto the bed. “We should have some dinner.”

“I'm not hungry,” Carlos protested, flopping over to bury his face in the bedsheets.

“I know. But we should have dinner, anyway.”

With Carlos purposely making it more difficult, Cecil pulled him to his feet and toward the hallway. Each step of the way, his feet were like lead. He was half surprised that Cecil didn't just pick him up and carry him, but maybe he wasn't strong enough--

(No, he definitely was. Even if he had to use his tentacles. Maybe that was just considered rude to carry people with them. Was there an etiquette to having tentacles?)

\--or maybe he just didn't want to. They made it out to the living room, at least, and Cecil sat him down on the couch and quickly made himself busy cleaning up the empty liquor bottles.

“Why do you drink so much?” Carlos asked, figuring now seemed as good of a time to do it as any. Cecil seemed initially to be ignoring him, dumping bottles into a garbage bag in silence until he paused, staring for a few moments at the floor.

Cecil looked over and replied almost as if reciting, “If you see something, say nothing, and drink to forget.” He finished shoving the last few bottles into the bag, leaving the unfinished ones still sitting on the coffee table.

Frowning, Carlos asked, “Forget what?”

“Well, if I knew the answer to that, it wouldn't be very effective,” he pointed out.

He excused himself to the kitchen to go and make dinner, leaving the bag of empty bottles by the door to take out later. It wasn't the first one there, Carlos was horrified to realize that he hadn't even noticed there were two others.

Even if it had been spread out over the three weeks Cecil had been in the apartment, it was worrisome. He made a mental note to keep an eye on Cecil's drinking habits, from now on.

Cecil's idea of dinner for the night was simple, perhaps in trying not to force Carlos to eat too much. He came in carrying a couple of drinks, and a couple of bowls of microwaved chicken soup, and Carlos marveled momentarily at the usefulness of having so many limbs and maybe marveled more at the fact that Cecil's tentacles weren't slimy and the food wasn't contaminated. (He'd always imagined tentacles being slippery, but apparently not on people.)

He politely declined the fruity cooler that Cecil passed to him, “I don't drink.”

“It would probably help you forget,” Cecil pointed out, setting the cooler down on the coffee table. He settled down next to Carlos on the couch, with his bowl of soup and a beer, and for a while, they ate in silence.

“Is it safe to be alone anymore?” Carlos asked at length, staring at a spoonful of chicken broth like it held the answer to the question.

Cecil replied predictably vaguely, “Is it ever safe to be alone?” At the look he received from Carlos, he corrected his statement without needing to be asked, “I don't know the answer to that, Carlos. There are a lot of things that, despite knowing a lot of answers, I don't know the answers to. It may be safe, it probably is. I don't think that we will see any news from the Smiling God immediately. Other than that, I don't know. The sky could fall and crush us whether we are alone or not, if you want to consider all outcomes.”

“The sky can't fall, Cecil. That's not even scientifically possible. The sky isn't a solid object,” Carlos pointed out.

He accepted this answer, “You're probably right about that. I don't know anything about the sky or the mysterious lights that float in it. You're very smart, Carlos.” Cecil chuckled and took a swig of his drink.

Carlos thanked him quietly, staring into his soup. He eventually broke the silence again. “If drinking helps you to forget, what are you trying to forget right now?”

“Always some kind of pains to forget, sweet Carlos,” he replied.

“You're too vague. This... this weird philosophical thing you're always doing. Why is everything a deep life-shattering statement with you?” Carlos complained, “Can't you just say something straightforward and just say what's going on?”

Cecil knocked back the rest of his drink and settled back in his seat, and for a while it seemed that he wasn't going to answer at all. When he did eventually reply, Carlos had finished his soup and long forgotten what he was even replying to.

“When you work in radio for so long,” Cecil began, “You tend to get a grasp on how people want you to report things to them. Euphemisms, little jokes that wax philosophical or absurd—you develop a nuanced technique. I have been a radio professional for... a very long time. And it tends to slip out, and most people don't mind it.” He smiled sadly over at Carlos and continued, “It's a comfort, I think.”

He shook his head, “It's not comforting, Cecil. I want to know what's going on, I want to _understand_ , I need to know what to expect. _That's_ comforting. Not this... everything happens for a reason, we're all alone in the end, whatever you're going on about.” He frowned. “Maybe that works on your listeners, but I want the truth.”

A laugh escaped Cecil's lips, perhaps unintentionally. “You scientists, always hungry for knowledge. Always trying to understand _everything_. It's adorable.” He reached over to take Carlos' face in his hands. “Do you think you can understand everything?”

“Don't condescend to me, Cecil,” he complained, pulling away.

Cecil frowned, “I'm not condescending, I think that it's... admirable, to want to understand the world. Admirable, and maybe a little dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Carlos asked with a sharp laugh. “It's more dangerous not to understand the world you're living in, I would think.”

“Maybe sometimes. But knowledge can be dangerous, when you know too much,” Cecil's voice dropped lower, quieter. “Who knows what could happen, then. Who knows who might find out the things that you know. What they might do to you.”

There was a certain element of unease in Cecil's voice that he wasn't sure he wanted to acknowledge. Maybe it was, in its own way, an admission of guilt over having known too much. Maybe the horror stories Cecil could share didn't stop at _other_ people doing harm while seeking knowledge at his expense.

“I'll be careful, alright?” he offered, which seemed to relax Cecil's worry somewhat.

Carlos reached out and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling Cecil in for a hug. The gesture was maybe a little awkward; it was a big difference between being hugged by the mass of tentacles at Cecil's disposal, and attempting to wrap his arms around them all, and Cecil had to reposition himself and apologize a few times.

“Should I maybe put them away?” he asked with a chuckle.

“I think they're cool.”

Cecil smiled up at him. “Neat.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprisingly one of the hardest chapters I've written. I think I must be more suited to writing more dramatic chapters, or something. well, no worries. things will start to get Exciting again. soon.
> 
> thanks for comments/kudos (i'm at 100 kudos!!!) as always! hope you enjoy!


	17. Bloody Sermon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin thinks back on the events that led him to the University of What It Is, and begins his search for an intern, with the help of a companion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: graphic depictions of blood and gore and mutilation and cannibalism. Yes, cannibalism. Read at your own risk, or read the notes at the conclusion of the chapter for a synopsis, minus horrible gore.

Kevin wasn't unappreciative, or at least he tried not to be, but even though all he was working with was a small town university radio station, he'd hoped they would have at least had some kind of decent recording equipment. It was all old, unlike their phones, it was so  _ very _ old. He almost thought he'd used the same style of equipment as an intern.

He'd made a few improvements to the recording booth, with some friendly donations from the previous amateur radio hosts, but something was  _ still _ missing.

No interns ran around, nobody was fetching him any coffee, nobody was there to look impressed as he prepared his copy for the day's radio broadcast. Kevin sat alone in the recording booth and thought through the whole dilemma.

It was true enough that the people of the University were...  _ reluctant _ . It had taken him several demonstrations of punishment before the theater students had finally found an outfit that he wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen in; he sat alone in his booth in fine slacks and a crisp white shirt and leaned his elbows on the desk until blood soaked into the starched fabric. 

Kevin was feeling unfulfilled.

He needed an intern. He needed a co-host. He needed...something.

After his arrival, the school had split itself off accordingly, mostly by major with a few defectors for each. The theater department, the art department, those groups were terrified but obedient enough after the displays he'd had for them. Walking into the library, he'd found the theology department and they were sure he was a sign that they'd been left behind in the rapture. Some of them sided with him to protect themselves, others fled.

The psychology department, inconsolable, was uselessly unproductive. English majors stepped up to volunteer material for him to read on his radio show, until they realized he really  _ wasn't _ going to read classics on the air. A sense of betrayal followed. He collected one of them to correct his copy, and then they were feeling so giving, they stayed around to help decorate.

Nobody could locate the philosophy majors. They were gone.

Of all the departments, he hated the scientists the most. They were the ones who yelled that Smiling Gods weren't real, the ones who had argued with him in the desert and questioned if he was, himself, a mirage.

“A—a mirage?” Kevin had laughed, squinting to try and make out the shapes of the students, a disruption from the expanse of the desert at long last. He'd almost forgotten how to see them right.

The students stopped approaching, muttering to each other. He could make out a few phrases, “Can mirages speak?” “Shh, shh, maybe he's a philosophy major.” “Hey, my sister's a philosophy major!”

Their teacher, the lovely Rachelle, she stepped forward then to approach Kevin. “Hello?” she called to him. “Are you alright? Do you know where we are?”

As she came close enough, he knew what was going to happen, so he kept his eyes shut and didn't try to look up at her. “I—I think I'm alright,” he answered.

“Are you sure? How long have you been out here? Are you—you look familiar.” Rachelle stopped dead in her tracks, staring down at him as he knelt in the sand and didn't look up at her. Kevin hadn't seen a mirror in years, which was beside the point, but he also had nobody around to tell him how he looked. Maybe he looked atrocious.

Unprofessional.

...Familiar?

All at once, he realized, and as he looked up at her, she took several steps back, holding her arms out like she was trying to shield the students, though some of them looked more formidable in a fight. Not that any of them actually  _ were _ formidable, but, you know.

“You're not—” she began, and he interrupted, knowing what to expect.

“Cecil Palmer? I'm  _ not _ Cecil Palmer, am I? Everyone—everyone! Thinks that. Why can't anyone just see me and see  _ me _ .” He took several steps toward her, and his legs felt unsteady but he knew better than they did how to run on the loose sand, if it came to it.

As he approached, she backed away, instructing the same of her students. “Cecil Palmer?” she asked, “Is that—is this something that happens frequently? Do you know who the stranger is? Who are  _ you _ ?”

Kevin narrowed his eyes, watching her carefully. He wiped away some of the thick black ink pouring down his face. And then he brightened. She was asking him questions, she wasn't just running and yelling! Oh, this was a good start.

“You can call me Kevin,” he replied, as cheerfully as he could muster with his voice raw and cracked from the desert dryness. “Who are you? Where...where are you  _ from _ ?”

She hesitated, but answered, “Call me Rachelle. These are my students—we're from the University of What It Is.”

He quirked an eyebrow, “What  _ what _ is?”

The collective snickering that arose from the group of students suggested this wasn't the first time they'd dealt with somebody making the same mistake. He realized quickly and corrected himself with a laugh.

“ _ Oh _ , that's the name of the University, isn't it?” he asked, and Rachelle told him it was.

Just by talking to them, it seemed he'd calmed their nervousness; it was comforting to know he hadn't lost his touch entirely. So he smiled as he asked them, “Do any of you happen to have any water?”

A young woman walked forward to offer Kevin her water bottle, with the warning, “There's not a lot but. You can have a bit.”

Kevin carefully unscrewed the cap and drank everything that was left in the bottle in a single, desperate gulp. He handed the bottle back, and she took it, but was clearly disappointed in his greediness.

"I told you there wasn't a lot, what was that for?" she complained.

"I've been out here... for  _ so _ long," he explained with a chuckle, "For so, so very long. Nothing to drink...nothing to... eat... nothing to talk to. Just me, all alone. Just me. Do you know what that's like?" He raised his voice, "Do you  _ know _ what that's  _ like _ ?!"

As his tone of voice changed, she moved away from him, uneasy at his laughter and untrusting of his motives. Rachelle tried to move between Kevin and the students again, and he shoved her away with surprising strength for someone who reported being stuck in the desert alone for... however long, he hadn't mentioned.

"Listen, you need to just relax," she said, "We can bring you back to the University with us, get you some food, a change of clothes. Just--calm down."

After watching her a moment, Kevin apologized. "You're absolutely right. There's no sense in getting worked up about this." He cracked a smile, but he was afraid it might not have been big enough.

Regardless, Rachelle didn't distrust his words and asked him, "How did you get here? We're trying to find our way back home, it doesn't sound like anyone knows how, though."

Kevin shook his head, "You don't leave. You  _ can't _ leave here, I've been here for...so, so long. So  _ very _ long." He laughed, "It's alright though! You get used to it. At least it's a dry heat."

"There  _ must _ be some way out," she insisted.

"Well, there isn't! But it's alright. You are  _ all _ welcome, every one of you. I'll even welcome you myself. I'm sure the Smiling God will accept you just as gladly." And again, he smiled but it didn't feel right and so rarely did, anymore.

He reached up to touch at his face, and the healed scars to either side of his mouth. Kevin scarcely noticed the mortified look on Rachelle's face.

"The what, now?" It wasn't entirely impossible that he'd gone entirely mad.

Kevin lowered his hands and peered over at her, black eyes still dripping down his face. "The Smiling God! He watches over  _ everything _ in these lands. Everything. I've had nobody else for company for a long time, so we've become pretty good friends!" He laughed.

Rachelle gestured to her students to move away, and started to do the same. "Friends with a Smiling God? Well, I'd hate to interrupt your uh, friendship."

"Oh, you wouldn't," he answered brightly. "You're more than welcome to join in, actually, it's mandatory if you're going to stay! And you're going to stay." As they backed away, he kept closing the gap. "And listen, I  _ know _ it can be pretty scary accepting change, but this is a  _ good _ change! You'll feel so much happier under his light."

She shook her head, "Stay back--stay  _ back _ ."

"Don't you ever feel  _ aimless _ though? Do you ever feel  _ hopeless _ ? Is there ever too much  _ negativity _ in your life? I know you know that I'm right," he continued. "The Smiling God wants to help fix all of that for you. He wants to help fix  _ you _ ."

As he made a grab for Rachelle, she yelled to her students to run--he shifted focus quickly as he saw where her priorities lay. Kevin went after the small cluster of students with all his strength, whipped forward with the six tentacles he had left. Rachelle screamed at him and he felt her grabbing at his back like she was trying to claw the tentacles right out, but it was barely a pain at all, and he smiled up at the young woman lifted overhead as he tore her limbs off, sprinkling a refreshing mist of blood down onto himself and Rachelle and the others he held in his remaining limbs.

The screaming was like music to his ears, a music he hadn't heard in so long, he'd almost feared he never would again. Those students that he didn't grab immediately, they ran, and he didn't care, they wouldn't find their way  _ anywhere _ . Wouldn't warn  _ anyone _ . But Rachelle's grabbing at him and hitting him was alright until he felt the blade of her knife slide through the flesh at the base of one of his tentacles.

Kevin let out a cry as she forced the blade through and severed the appendage; he crushed her students on the spot just to get them out of the way, and spun to face her with a scowl on his face, and it  _ wasn't _ good to scowl.

" _ Why _ would you  _ hurt _ me, Rachelle?" he hissed through gritted teeth, trying to keep his voice level. He grabbed her hands, quickly; first thing he did was rip the knife from her grip and throw it as far as he could. He wasn't going to be able to get that tentacle back, after it melted into nothing in the sand.

She was going to  _ pay _ for that.  _ Dearly _ . With a  _ very _ heavy workload.

"You're a fucking  _ monster _ ," she hissed, and spat in his face, saliva mingling with the black ink that she now realized was blood, after so much of the same had come off onto her hands with the severing of his tentacle.

Kevin wiped the spit off his face with the back of his hand, gripping her tightly with two of the extra appendages, tight enough to hurt but not to injure.

"It's funny how you think I'm a monster when  _ you're _ the one who just cut something off of me!" he retorted, "I think you're a pretty big monster, Rachelle! Maybe the biggest.  _ You're an unbeliever _ ."

The burn was always the same, and it didn't surprise him but maybe he'd forgotten after he hadn't done it in so long, just how much it would hurt when he tore open the stitches on his third eye to let the light shine out, blindingly, into Rachelle's own eyes.

"Open your eyes, Rachelle!" he cried, though his own blackened eyes were closed against the bright light. "Open your eyes, receive him! Receive his forgiveness, for he is light, and light, and  _ light _ !"

She struggled, initially. She struggled and hit at him and tried to wrench free of his grasp, and she cried and screamed and it seemed  _ so _ familiar, but he pushed it from his mind as she fell slack in his arms, and he sunk to the ground still holding her. 

Kevin opened his eyes in a squint, still trying to shield against the brightness coming from the third eye, from his own burnt out blessing from the Smiling God. Kevin always kept a sewing kit on hand to stop the light, but he had to be certain first that Rachelle had received it.

Her skin faintly burnt, it only looked like she'd been out in the sun too long. He couldn't wake her from the faint she'd fallen into, but oh, he had a feeling that when she woke, she would be singing a whole new song.

Satisfied, Kevin began the process of stitching up his third eye once again, and then set to work on the crushed corpses of the students because  _ oh _ , it was just such a disappointment to leave them so untouched as that.

Just such a waste.

Kevin dug into the body cavity of the nearest young woman, recognizing her as the one who'd offered him her water, well, she was so  _ kind _ , so  _ giving _ , he knew she wouldn't mind if he borrowed a little more from her. The blood that covered his arms, that soaked into his ragged shirt, it felt like a baptism after so long in the dry sun.

With relish, he cracked back her ribs to seek out his  _ favorite _ part, still warm and barely damaged from the crushing. He pulled her bloody heart from her chest, and sunk his teeth into the raw flesh.

It was like he'd been missing something for months, been missing the one thing that gave him joy--

(The second thing that gave him joy, bless the Smiling God for  _ true _ joy.)

\--and here it was, it was back. Neatly delivered in sweet, fleshy packages that cowered in fear of him. Kevin made quick work of the students, he decorated the sandy desert, he only took the parts he wanted to taste, but the rest could feed the...nah, there weren't any vultures left in the desert anymore.

He'd been hunting them before they had the chance to hunt  _ him _ first, but now there was new game to be hunted, that most  _ dangerous _ game that he'd missed so much.

So Kevin had made his way to the University, and he'd been so very glad to find it after so long wandering through the desert alone. Now he was cleaned up, he'd found the radio he'd been needing for so long, to get his word out. He was ready, and all he needed was an intern.

He sought out Rachelle, who he found tucked away into her office, entrenched in the work of cutting back at the corners of her lips like he'd shown to her. Fixing her own inadequate smile to  _ perfection _ .

She still winced when she felt the pain, but he knew that was only a temporary condition. Really, all of life was a temporary condition. Kevin walked over to her desk when she was done and she looked up at him.

"Oh, Kevin! Did I... does this look right?" she asked, gesturing to the new smile sliced across her face. It was lopsided, it was hastily done, but it was still an improvement.

The rest, she could work on later.

"It's a wonderful start, Rachelle. Listen, I wanted to ask you something...do you have anybody who might want to intern for me? I was going to start  _ broadcasting _ , with the equipment from the old University radio station, but it feels so wrong to do it alone."

Rachelle considered this before replying, “Well, I could help, couldn't I?”

Kevin just laughed. “No. You wouldn't be right for the job at all, Rachelle. I appreciate your willingness to apply for it, though! Do you know anyone else? Maybe...a student? Any of your brightest and best, who would love to be... _brighter_? _Bester_? Under the protection of a Smiling and merciful God?”

“Well, maybe,” she muttered, looking insulted nonetheless. “I mean, I might have someone, but they're all _students_ , Kevin. I don't want you settling for anyone unprofessional.”

He shook his head, “Oh no, I'm sure they will be much more professional than you.”

Though she wanted to argue, when she opened her mouth to speak, he corrected her far in advance and told her to smile. “You see, Rachelle? I can't do _anything_ with you with that attitude. It's simply unacceptable.”

So she sighed, looking back at her desk, and began leafing through blood-spattered papers in the hopes that some student's name would jump out at her, promising and full of potential. Mostly, she got a lot of duds.

Rachelle stopped on the second to last paper with a smile.

“Oh. _That_ might do.”

* * *

The room was dark, and it came into focus slowly as Avery regained consciousness. They weren't sure how long they'd been laying on the floor, certainly long enough to hurt as they sat back up to look around.

A closet. Somebody had stuffed them into a storage closet, and the back of their head hurt like they'd been whacked pretty hard. A precursory check confirmed: their phone had been confiscated by...whoever had done this.

"Rachelle...?" they called out in a cautious tone, looking around the cluttered storage closet, but if there even was enough room for another person, she'd have had to lay on the floor right with them, and she wasn't.

That was all they had to go on; she'd been there, and they'd been there talking to her, and then, waking up with a pounding head and no phone, in a closet.

Something was very wrong.

Slowly, quietly, they moved to the door and cracked it open. The light that filtered in from the hallway was blinding; they squinted into it to make out where they were.

And the first thing they saw was blood. So much blood.  _ So much blood _ .

Avery closed the door, slowly, carefully, and leaned against it.

Okay. Plan B: don't go out into the murder hallway.

Wait for a real plan B to formulate, instead.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> since my Kevin chapters are becoming increasingly more horrific as I continue to write him, I figured I would give the option of a synopsis in case anyone wanted one:
> 
> The chapter starts with Kevin sitting in the booth that the University radio was once broadcast from, considering his need of an intern to make the radio feel a little more official. No real hint is given yet as to why he's interested in trying to broadcast, or what he hopes to accomplish.  
> A flashback tells the tale of how Kevin ran into Rachelle and the students who she was exploring the desert with. After an unspecified long amount of time wandering the desert alone, he's surprised to see other people there, and they're surprised by him, and slightly afraid. Nevertheless, he behaves in a chipper manner, so Rachelle starts up a conversation; he starts trying to talk about the Smiling God and the group begins to move away, uneasy and imagining him to be some kind of lunatic.  
> Kevin proceeds to be a lunatic, killing every one of the students, and then shows Rachelle the light of the Smiling God, literally--it appears that his third eye, when unstitched, produces a blinding light from it. He stitches himself back up, has a light snack of some science students, and leaves.  
> Back in the present day, Kevin seeks out Rachelle to ask if she has any interns in mind for him. Rachelle, now with a Glasgow smile to match his, offers that she would gladly be his intern. He declines, telling her that she isn't professional enough, and she tries to seek out possible student names from a pile of papers on her desk, to see if anyone might make a good intern.  
> Elsewhere, Avery awakens in a storage closet, with their phone confiscated and a raging headache. The hallway outside is full of blood, so they decide to stay hidden for now.
> 
> aaandd there we go, a reader friendly synopsis.
> 
> I do miss Carlos and Cecil when I'm not writing them, so next chapter I will be glad to see them again and I imagine you guys will too haha.
> 
> thanks as always for the kudos/comments!


	18. Sloppy Shirts and Interns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos wakes up covered in weird tentacle slime after snuggling with Cecil all night. Somewhere else, Mx. Mitchell wakes up with one hell of a headache, and more headaches to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild warning for weird surrealist violence. No blood/gore.

Morning found Carlos staring at the blank wall over Cecil's bathroom sink.

Okay, so he'd explained that he didn't like mirrors much. He'd asked Carlos to cover his mirrors when he was over. That was... odd, but everything else about Cecil was odd enough, he hardly noticed another addition until it was otherwise frustrating.

Cecil had insisted he looked fine,  _ beautiful _ in fact, but he had a feeling that was just what somebody was supposed to say to you after you woke up with your head tucked under their chin and tentacles up your shirt.

(That had been a disturbing moment, until he remembered what he now knew about Cecil's anatomy, and that no strange entity had grabbed him, or at least not an  _ unfamiliar _ strange entity, at any rate.)

Now Carlos had neither a toothbrush nor mirror, he couldn't check himself, couldn't clean himself up. Cecil knocked before entering the bathroom with a bundle of clothes.

“These should fit... be a little cleaner than...yeah.” He was still nothing but apologies; that night had offered an important bit of insight into the inky ooze that his tentacles could smear onto bedmates while he slept. He didn't even have the excuse anymore that he was bleeding, because the wound Carlos gave him had healed in the night.

Carlos took a long, hard look at the furry pants in Cecil's arms and started laughing.

“I am  _ not _ wearing fuzzy pants, I'm sorry, but no.”

Cecil frowned. “I don't have any other pants that will fit you, it's all too tall and too narrow and I know you said you didn't want to wear any skirts. These are the pants I have left.” He tried again to push the furry pants at Carlos, who pushed them away.

“I can wear my pants again, they're fine as long as you've got a clean shirt at least.”

He set the pants on the bathroom counter and unfolded the shirt in his arms, emblazoned with the letters NVCR, and then on the back, 'Intern'. Carlos took the shirt, looking it over; it was certainly big enough to fit, though he wasn't sure what he would be proudly proclaiming himself an intern of.

“So NVCR stands for...?” he prompted.

“That's from the old Night Vale Community Radio. I, uh—I grabbed one of those, since there were so many that nobody needed anymore and... I like it, I've been uh...sleeping in it, a bit. It reminds me of the station.”

Carlos couldn't help but smile at the thought of Cecil, curled up in bed wearing the oversized shirt as he slept. It reminded him of home, and he'd offered it to Carlos to wear. He thanked Cecil, and Cecil just nodded and stood there.

It took Carlos a few moments to realize he had to tell Cecil to leave the room so he could change his shirt; Cecil was terribly disappointed, of course, but he obliged. Carlos made sure he locked the bathroom door, in case Cecil didn't understand to stay out.

Once he was sure he was secure, Carlos tugged off the slimy novelty shirt he'd been wearing and tossed it into the sink. He'd deal with that later, his concern was primarily with the binder that Cecil had slimed up just as badly. Carlos worked his way out and set it on the counter, taking a few moments just to catch his breath.

Okay, so he wasn't supposed to sleep in that. He _definitely_ wasn't supposed to wear it for so long, but what else was he supposed to do? When an attractive man was asking him to come to bed, and he didn't want to interrupt the mood—

(“Oh, Cecil, by the way, I haven't been entirely honest about my birth gender.”)

—so maybe he'd made a stupid decision, but he wasn't sure what Cecil would think if he came clean. Would he consider it lying? Would he consider it unnatural?

Carlos couldn't help but laugh at himself, at the insinuation that he'd shared a bed with a man who grew tentacles, and he was worrying about if Cecil would find his breasts unusual. In that moment, it was a relief to have no mirror to see himself in.

But his binder was covered in black slime, like the rest of him. Had Cecil really not even noticed it, with his tentacles shoved up underneath Carlos' shirt all night?

He hadn't mentioned it. Carlos considered that proof he hadn't even noticed, or maybe he just thought it was an undershirt, or something. It seemed too out of character to expect Cecil to keep anything quiet, all he ever _did_ was talk.

Trying to wash the slime out in the sink, Carlos immediately wondered what kind of laundry detergent Cecil must have used to get it out of, well, _everything,_ honestly. It wasn't coming out, not from his t-shirt, not from his binder. Well, he didn't care about the shirt. He'd wear Cecil's radio shirt. The binder, he couldn't go without.

It wasn't until he'd been stuck in the bathroom trying to fix the situation for more than a half hour that Cecil finally came knocking—if anything, a testament to his patience that he hadn't come bothering Carlos twenty minutes ago.

“Carlos, are you alright in there?” he asked, leaned up against the door.

Seated miserably on the toilet with his soaked and slimed binder in his hands, Carlos replied as convincingly as he could, “I'm okay. Just—uh. Just... decided to take a shower. I'm just getting out, so...”

Cecil sighed. “A shower? I didn't hear the water running. Is there something wrong?”

“Well I mean, I was _trying_ to take a shower, but then see, your shower is clogged,” he was throwing this excuse together on the spot, looking over the small shower stall for possible ideas. “You've got a _lot_ of hair in the drain, Cecil, don't you ever clean it out? So I've been trying to clean it out, so _then_ I can shower, and—”

He was interrupted, “You know you can talk to me if anything is bothering you, Carlos. Oh, beautiful Carlos, you can talk to me about _anything_ , anything at all. I'll listen.”

Carlos said nothing for a length of time, but rose to his feet to try one last time to scrub his binder off in the sink. “I'll be out in a minute,” he replied, and promised himself it would be true whether he could fix the situation or not.

Tempting as it was, he couldn't just stay locked in the bathroom forever, and if he'd ruined his binder, he was going to have to go home, get another—he'd have to explain to Cecil, have to hope Cecil was understanding.

And he sure hoped so, because that slime wasn't coming out, at all.

Defeated, he threw on the radio intern shirt and thanked the lack of mirrors, because he couldn't satisfy the morbid desire to inspect how bad he looked before he opened the bathroom door and Cecil nearly fell on him, having been leaned so heavily against the door.

He caught himself in the doorframe and laughed self-consciously before straightening again. “That was a close one. Are you alright, Carlos?” he asked, looking up at the man's face, above all else, looking up with concern at Carlos' _face_ , and not at anything else that felt way more conspicuous.

Carlos couldn't bring himself to make eye contact as he blurted out, “We need to go home I—I need to get a clean binder. You... covered the last one with... well the stuff you covered the rest of me with.” He wasn't sure what it was actually called.

Immediately embarrassed, Cecil started into a whole slew of apologies, “Oh, Carlos, I didn't mean to.” and “Is that what I was doing all night? I'm sorry.” and “I shouldn't have had those out all night.” and “Are you alright? I'm so sorry, Carlos.” and “If you need something to cover up better so we can go back to your apartment...”

And Carlos interrupted him, “No, no, it's okay—I'm not upset, it's okay, I just. I wasn't sure how to bring it up, I should've brought it up, I shouldn't have even been wearing it all night, I could hurt myself like that.”

Which was the wrong choice of words. Cecil was instantly on him, checking him over for injuries, prodding at his sides as if expecting to find broken ribs or something. Carlos winced whenever he hit a bruised spot, and while he was normally able to keep up a stoic front about it, with Cecil jabbing his fingers on the bruise, he winced and gave himself away.

He stopped the poking and prodding, distressed. “Oh, you're hurt! Carlos, I'm so sorry you felt like you had to keep it on all night. I don't want you to feel uncomfortable around me, you should _never_ have to feel uncomfortable around me like that...”

Carlos couldn't make eye contact as he replied, “It's not your fault. I could have said something—should. Should have said something. I didn't want you thinking... different of me.”

The next words that came out of Cecil's mouth were perhaps the most sensible thing he'd said yet, “Do you think differently of me because of my tentacles?”

“Well, no, but...” Carlos began, and Cecil didn't let him finish.

“Then why should I think anything different of you? I think, wouldn't science say, you're much more normal than I am?” Cecil smiled at him, “There are a lot more men who wear binders than there are men with... tentacles, and third eyes, and um, black blood?” In light of Carlos' own discomfort, it was easy to forget that Cecil probably felt a little unusual sometimes, himself. But it was a comfort to know.

He saw nothing wrong with it.

“Now, come on. We can go and get you a clean binder from at home, but I made breakfast—so we're going to eat breakfast, first, and _then_ we can go,” he chattered as he dragged Carlos toward the kitchen. It smelled like waffles, he'd made waffles.

By the kitchen door, he paused and spoke again, “And please... Carlos...lovely Carlos, don't hurt yourself because you're afraid of how I'll react. I'll never like you any less. For anything. That's a promise.”

Carlos nodded and said nothing, because he couldn't trust his voice not to shake.

A promise.

* * *

 

Anita Mitchell woke in the back room of the What It Is Community Radio Station with a pounding headache like she'd never had before, and no idea how the hell she'd managed to pass out in the break room instead of actually going home.

There were papers spilled out on the table she'd been laying her head on, newspapers and letters and eyewitness reports that she'd been receiving for the past few weeks and thought nothing of them, just that someone was making a huge elaborate prank. When Cecil and Carlos had walked in the morning before, she thought the joke had finally come to a close.

Then they'd come back later, and she'd realized: if they weren't joking about that, maybe the reports she'd been receiving and ignoring weren't joking either.

Reports of strange lights in the sky, that only some people seemed to see. Reports of strange figures in the shadow, of wheat products that turned into snakes in the night. Bags of hamburger buns—they were snakes now. She looked out the window to gauge the time of day, and the sky was gone. No, it wasn't dark. In fact, it was bright and sunny outside—the sky, itself, was simply gone, replaced by a void.

Cecil had been saying...what had he been saying, the day before? She'd laughed a lot of it off, even though she'd let him say it so he'd leave her alone. She'd spent a while after he left making sure her listeners understood that his segment was a _joke._

But she'd let him give her his cellphone number, anyway. He told her to call him if she ever needed a co-host, or if she needed help reporting on any.. unusual things that were happening, as though he'd known all along that she'd been receiving reports and ignoring them.

 _He_ was the unusual thing that had happened, she was sure he had something to do with all of it. With no real answers, all she could do was try to piece together the night before, how she'd gotten stuck in the break room.

Mx. Mitchell started a pot of coffee and wandered out to see if anyone had arrived for the day. She'd sent her interns home the night before, that much she remembered; well, Patricia had run home on her own, but she'd called in Liam's mother to pick him up when he woke and still wasn't in any shape to walk himself home.

Neither of them had made it in for the day, and she couldn't blame them after what had happened. If she was facing two letters of resignation in the coming days, it wouldn't be a surprise. She knocked on the door of Station Management, and heard a sound that signaled to her that he'd come in for work... why hadn't he come to wake her in the break room?

She tested the doorknob and it wasn't locked, so she peered in and hoped she wasn't interrupting anything important. The room was dark inside, and before she could get a word out, she knew that what she was looking at was _wrong_ , very, very wrong. And she felt something, more like a feeling than a physical object, but not entirely unlike a clawed, physical hand—and it grabbed at her to pull her into the room.

“No, no, no no no, fuck!” She tugged the door shut on the hand and saw it for a moment, silhouetted in black, before it dissolved into nothing and the door was closed.

It didn't sound like the beast in Station Management was happy, after that, but she wasn't sure what that... _thing_ in his office was even saying. The door rattled and flung back open, and she ran, screaming, from the building and out into the open air, where she tripped very quickly over a body and slammed to the ground.

Lying on the sidewalk only inches from the door, her intern, sweet Liam—she'd called his mother, hadn't she? She called his name a few times and crawled over to him to shake him awake—only to realize a moment too late that his head was _missing_. Completely _missing._

“O-oh fuck. Fuck. Liam? Oh shit, oh—god.” There wasn't even any blood, not a drop, not even a wound to suggest he'd ever had a neck at all. But the station door was rattling, and she knew that there was _something_ in there, even more threatening than a headless intern, even more threatening than the one person whose number she could call to ask what was going on.

Mx. Mitchell rose to her feet and ran, she ran until she felt like she'd put enough distance between herself and the station, she ran until she no longer felt watched. Then she whipped out her phone with shaking hands, and tried to wipe the image of her intern from her mind—no, the image of Station Management, that was even _worse—_ but no, she needed to remember. She had to remember what was going on, as she dialed Cecil and pressed call.

The screen of her phone cracked, but the call went through, and Cecil's smooth voice came through like nothing in the world was frightening and bizarre. “Hello, Cecil Palmer speaking, former Voice of Night Vale, who might I ask is calling?”

“Y-you gave me your number last night, it's Anita—Anita Mitchell, I work at the radio station—Cecil, what's going on? What's going on? Something was in the station—I think—I think it kept me there all night—my intern was _headless_. Where is the sky? Answer me, Cecil. Answer me, tell me what's going on!”

A long silence followed, perhaps while he processed what she'd asked him, but before she could yell at him to break his silence, Cecil spoke again.

“Don't return to the station without me. I know what to do with Station Management—I've had to deal with it before. I'm sorry for your intern. You should probably inform their parents. Don't look at the sky too long. We can come and meet you, wherever you are.”

It was like he'd rehearsed a list for her to abide to; she was looking around to try and determine where she'd ended up, but the large fenced area in front of her was unfamiliar, like a new part of town, until she realized: she was staring at the place where the University had once stood, only a short while ago, it had once stood there.

Now, it was a wooden fence, tall enough that none could see over it, littered in signs telling everyone to keep out.

The fence had gone up literally overnight.

“Mx. Mitchell, are you there?” Cecil asked after a long enough silence.

She answered shakily, “Yes—yes I'm... by the University—by where the University used to be. And... call me Anita, I think we're on a first name basis now.”

“Alright. We're going to head over as soon as we can, Anita. Don't go onto the University campus—in fact, stay a good distance from the fence. Maybe find yourself a cafe, or something, you know? Have a nice snack, maybe a coffee. And don't, don't look up at the sky too long. The Void can really mess with people's memories.”

Anita waited in silence a moment before answering, “Alright. I won't look up? I'll be in the uh—okay, the Mario's. I'll be waiting.”

“We should be there shortly,” Cecil replied. “Goodbye, Anita. Goodbye.”

He hung up, and she stared at her phone a moment. He'd used a very similar sign-off the night before, when he'd left her radio program. It was... weird.

Cecil was weird.

 _Everything_ was weird.

She wandered into Mario's for a quick bite to eat, maybe a coffee, yeah. She had a feeling she was going to need to be awake for whatever was going to follow.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't sure at first if i was going to develop Mx. Mitchell into another bigger character in the story, but I feel like she could serve an important role as things go from weird to weirder, so there you have it. 
> 
> To the family and friends of Intern Liam: He will be missed.
> 
> thank you all for reading! c: you're the best.


	19. Desert Radio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the desert, Kevin begins his first broadcast, with the help of an excited intern. Elsewhere, Mx. Mitchell asks Cecil and Carlos for help with a particularly strange problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know the drill by now: Violence warnings are pretty much par for the course.
> 
> Kevin's section (before the line break) includes: blood, mutilation (milder than some previous chapters)
> 
> Cecil/Carlos' section includes: blood (in a ritualistic context)
> 
> Not as bad as previous chapters, so just be careful. There will be a synopsis anyway, my Kevin chapters leave me feeling like those are necessary.

Kevin's voice came out over every intercom in the University, that morning:

[ _ Hello, listeners! Wow, this is just exciting, isn't it? A brand new radio station, a brand new audience, a brand new life. A brand new me. Welcome to Desert Bluffs! _

_ I think I should start my first broadcast with an introduction. Well, you can all call me Kevin. I've been living here for—as long as I can remember! I really can't remember anything of my former life. So that's fun, right? I replaced it all with  _ newer _ memories. Better ones. And I can't wait to make new memories with all of you! _

_ Now, I know what you're all thinking,  _ “Why _ did it take you so long to welcome us all, Kevin? Isn't that a little rude to make us wait?” or maybe “Wow, this Kevin guy sure has a swell radio show!” Well, thank you, listeners! I'm sure I can offer you some answers to all of your questions. _

_ I might say, first of all, that it is  _ you _ who were all so rude to  _ me _ , why, I had to wait so long before I even knew you were here! Of course, I couldn't greet you when I didn't know you were here! I was out in the desert, still. Out there, for so long. So lost. So thirsty. So...alone. _

_But now that I know you're here, and you've all welcomed me, I'm ready and happy to welcome you all in return. So, welcome to Desert Bluffs!_

_ I don't have a very long show for you all, today, since it  _ is _ just my first broadcast, and nobody has requested any advertising slots yet. I could recite old ad copy to fill space, but I frankly don't think they deserve it! That will change, of course, as advertisers will  _ no doubt _ want to sell you all sorts of products, soon enough. _

_Now, in the mean time it's important that we all find productive ways to use the time that we've been given to wait for the new Desert Bluffs Community Radio to really take off. In fact, I want to know what each and every one of you is going to do to fulfill your productive potential while we wait._

_ Of course, I  _ know _ how you University students can be so worried about getting jobs, so I wanted to put my intern on to tell you all about their wonderful new job in radio! I wanted to—where did they go. Give me a moment, listeners. _

_ Wow, this  _ never _ happens.] _

As Kevin switched the radio to upbeat music, he turned from the microphone to search for his missing intern. Of course, he'd had his eyes on Avery only moments before the broadcast, where had that silly intern gotten off to?

He left the broadcasting booth and stepped out into the lounge situated by the campus radio station. “Now, I know you're out here, intern Avery. Rachelle  _ assured _ me you were going to behave with professionalism—I don't really consider this—”

Kevin didn't dodge the floor lamp that came swinging at the back of his head; he was thrown off-balance and fell to his knees on the carpeted floor. And he started laughing.

“Oooh, that was a  _ good _ one—”

Avery brought the lamp down on his head again, and tried for a third time, but Kevin caught it before they got off another hit. For a moment, they jerked frantically at the base of the lamp, before giving up on it and letting Kevin have it so they could move away.

“Don't—don't touch me,” they hissed through gritted teeth. “Don't come  _ near _ me, you fucking lunatic. I'm not your intern—I'm not your radio lackey—don't touch me!”

They yelled even as Kevin backed them into the corner of the room, barring their escape attempts with the crooked post of the floor lamp. Blood was streaming down Kevin's face, from where Avery had slammed the top of the lamp down on his head, but it wasn't red blood. No, it wasn't red blood at all, and that was when Avery knew for sure that the black ink pouring down his face all the time wasn't just ink.

“Are you frightened, little intern?” Kevin asked, watching him with those hollow black pits of eyes. “You probably should be. You just attacked me, why, I have all the right to defend myself from an attack! And the best defense is murder, of course.”

A shudder escaped that Avery couldn't stop, but they tried nevertheless to steady their voice as they replied, “You're a monster.”

Kevin dropped the lamp so he could reach out with his hands and try to take hold of Avery's face; considering the size difference, it wasn't too terribly hard. Avery felt incredibly small and helpless in Kevin's grip--

(Not that most people weren't big next to Avery, really everyone left them feeling tiny—okay, they _were_ tiny—but it was worse with people who took advantage of that.)

\--and their composure fell away as they saw what looked like weird black tendrils of ink oozing out from under Kevin's shirt, and slowly _realized_ what they were looking at.

This was it, this was death, definitely, completely death. They clamped their eyes shut and prepared for it while Kevin lectured on the importance of listening to their boss, and mostly ignored his words anyway.

“...disrupts productivity, I mean, how can we expect to work to our true productive potential if we're busy trying to rip each other's heads off? I don't want to waste that kind of time either, Avery. I've been wasting _so_ much time trying to get this station ready...”

Avery felt the knife against their cheek, but didn't open their eyes and didn't move, staying tensed and still as if that would keep him from resorting to the violence he was already so keen on doing to anyone he'd run into.

“I think you just need to smile and bear it, Avery. Complaining about your work never gets you anywhere in life,” he explained as he pressed the knife into the soft skin of Avery's face and slowly, methodically sliced the first half of a smile into his cheek.

Tears streaming down their face, Avery opened their eyes between cuts, watching Kevin lift the knife up to his own mouth and sample the blood on the blade with his tongue, like it was some rare treat. Some delicacy.

Avery kneed him in the groin as hard as they could, and Kevin sliced his own tongue from the surprise of it, and dropped the knife as he reeled back—but this time Avery wasn't trying to fight back, they only wanted to run. Fucking run away as far as they could.

Halfway across the room, a tentacle closed around their ankle and jerked them to the ground roughly, they screamed at him, “L-let go of me!” with blood dripping down their chin, tears down their cheeks.

Kevin's words came out a little sloppy, “Not the proper time...for bonding exercises, Avery. Now you need to get in that broadcasting room. Stop. Slacking.”

They struggled to try and get away as another tentacle grasped their other ankle, and Kevin rose to his feet to just drag them along the floor into the booth. The microphone was still off, as far as he remembered, and the radio was still just playing music for everyone as he sat Avery down in his seat and pinned them there.

He swallowed a mouthful of blood before he spoke, “Now, I like to say I'm a generous boss, but if you try to play any games, I will demote you to _decoration_.” He gestured at the blood and viscera around the booth that some other poor soul had donated. “Am I making myself clear, Avery?”

Avery nodded numbly, tongue thick in their mouth, they wouldn't have even tried to argue against him at this point. Bashed him over the head with a lamp, kneed him in the groin, made him bite down on a knife, and there he was, blood pouring down from his eyes and his grinning smile, and he wasn't _faltering_ in anything.

It wasn't a fight they could win.

“Now, I can't go back on sounding like this,” Kevin sounded disappointed as he spoke, “You made more work for yourself, cutting me. You should have aimed somewhere _else_ but now we can't change that. So you're just going to have to read my copy.”

He reached across the table to grab a bloody stack of papers, and set it in front of Avery to read. They could hardly make out a word of it, but Kevin wasn't explaining, and as far as they were aware, their very life depended on ad-libbing it like a pro.

Avery wiped away as much blood as they could, and squinted down at the paper to make it out as Kevin turned on the microphone and gestured for them to begin.

A grimace on their face, and half a smile carved in, Avery cleared their throat and spoke.

“Hello, listeners. I know Kevin probably al—already introduced me, I know a lot of you already know me anyway...”

Kevin smiled approvingly down at them as they continued, always keeping his hands on their shoulders, nails digging into their flesh.

“For those that don't, this is intern Avery, and I'm proud to be um, reporting for the...Dessert—...the new Desert Bluffs Community Radio, located in the heart of our very own University of What It Is. So, what _is_ it? Why, it's a... brand new start, a new radio. A new... us. And I'm proud, so proud—and Kevin...Kevin is proud, too—to be talking to you all right now, with my voice, over this radio.”

They continued the announcements, obedient and very afraid.

* * *

 

Mx. Mitchell was staring up into the sky like she'd been told not to do, when Cecil and Carlos turned the corner and came into view. Well, she looked away from the endless abyss above her when she heard Cecil call out to her, and rose from her table in front of Mario's.

Though she'd seen Cecil at what she imagined to be his most inhuman, now walking down the street with an arm linked with Carlos, he just looked like a normal dude who had no idea how to match his shirt to his pants. Well, and had a third eye. That was a thing, too.

“Sorry we took so long.” Carlos was the first to apologize. The scientist had apparently had some trouble dressing himself, as well, at least she figured that was the case judging by the baggy mismatched clothes he'd thrown on. Carlos was buried under loose clothes and an obnoxiously paisley lab coat.

(Honestly, they were a perfect match for each other.)

“It's alright. I've just been... sort of watching.” She gestured over at the fenced in University campus. “There's been a lot of people trying to figure out what it is, I'm surprised, how did the fence go up that fast? You asked for it last night.”

Cecil shrugged, “When the news is important, people will always listen.”

“Is that some weird magic thing like whatever everything else probably is? Honestly, what's going _on_ , man?” She folded her arms across her chest, watching Cecil now instead of the people inspecting the new wooden fence. “You bring this crazy with you, or what?”

After a long pause, he replied, “It's hard to know an...order, really. Did I come here first? Did everything else start happening first? I mean, who _really_ knows, am I right? Time is _meaningless_ and a _mystery_.”

Mx. Mitchell raised an eyebrow. “No, it's... it's not that hard to know. I'm pretty sure everything was normal before you got here.”

He laughed, “Okay, but what is _normal_ anyway? You people eat wheat! You...you read _books_ , what's normal about that? You can't blame me for everything.”

She couldn't think of anything to respond to that. Carlos seemed to be taking every weird thing he was saying in stride, maybe everyone was just going mad except for her. Nah. She was probably going mad, too, after all, she thought she'd seen—

“Okay. Listen. What happened to my boss, Cecil? What happened to my _intern_ , to _Liam_?You said you'd dealt with something like this before, how do we fix it?” She wasn't even going to deal with the arguments over what was weird or not while she still had to fix _that_.

Cecil answered matter-of-factly, “We can't fix it, not anymore. I'm sorry about the loss of your intern, I'm sure he will be missed. We need to try to contain Station Management, though, or it might be—well, bad for everyone, I'd suppose. I've never actually left Station Management _un_ contained, before, so.”

“This has happened _how_ many times before?” she asked, disbelief on her face.

All he could do was shrug, “I don't know? I've been a radio host for a _long_ time.” It was a stock answer, he'd said it before, but for the first time she suddenly believed it, fully. Believed completely that he really had been around for a long time, if this had happened, who could even say he would live a normal lifetime?

No wonder he had no grasp of normal.

“Okay...” she sighed. “How do we um, 'contain' Station Management, then?”

Cecil hesitated before replying, “I think it's best that I simply show you in person, since I'm going to need to do it myself. I already asked Carlos—you really don't know how to use bloodstones? _None_ of you? I mean, I know some people take a while learning it, but that's a high school level class at least.”

Carlos laughed a little, hanging onto Cecil's arm still, “No, Cecil. I already told you. Nobody here knows bloodstones. Asking somebody else doesn't mean the answer is going to change. We don't know weird Spanish either, just normal Spanish.”

“Just. How could you _not_ , I still don't understand how you do it.” Cecil shook his head like he was disappointed, but he was also still smiling down at Carlos with the sort of smile of someone who had no idea how he had someone so _perfect_ clinging to his arm.

Mx. Mitchell cleared her throat and he looked back over at her again, a slight purplish tinge to his cheeks. “Regardless. Carlos has my bloodstones, and I would be more than happy to perform the containment ritual, so you can have your radio back from Station Management.”

“Alright, so let's get moving then.” She ushered them along toward the station, and they moved as one solid unit, clinging to each other like excited lovers on the morning after.

(After what, she didn't want to think, after seeing Cecil's tentacles. Please, no.)

When they got to the station, Liam's body had vanished from the sidewalk, and everything looked...well, normal again. Mx. Mitchell was half inclined to think she'd dreamed it all, until their presence near the door instigated a strange, guttural screaming from inside the station. Nope. That thing was still in there.

“So...how do we...what do we...?” she wasn't sure what question to really ask.

Carlos had finally released Cecil's arm and passed the bloodstones over to him, and it honestly looked like they were going to go inside the radio station. Cecil explained, “I need to seal Station Management to their office, you understand. So I hope I'm not still kicked out of the station, am I?”

Mx. Mitchell paused, confused at the content of his question, “What? No. You're not kicked out? But why would—”

“Okay, great. Come on.” Cecil pushed open the doors of the radio station and walked in, with Carlos trailing behind him, apparently just as unafraid that anything bad could happen, or fully trusting in Cecil to keep it all under control.

She followed only once she decided that maybe she'd rather not stand outside and have no idea what was going on.

Inside the station, the presence of Station Management had already caused some changes. It smelled...musty, murky, wet—there was a sort of thick, black fog hanging heavy in the air that she had to navigate through to find Cecil setting up his bloodstone circle outside the door to Station Management's office. She could hear screaming, hissing, yelling from all directions, as if the entity that she'd seen earlier had taken up residence in all the air.

Concerned she was breathing it in, she clamped her hands over her mouth until she could figure out an alternative to better filter out the fog.

“Okay, so this stone goes here,” Cecil was explaining as he was setting up, like he was guiding Carlos through the motions in case the scientist ever needed to use the technique later, for whatever reason. Carlos watched like if he blinked, he would lose valuable information.

Mx. Mitchell took a seat near them, since it seemed to be the thing to do, and she figured that if everything went to shit, the safest place to be would be near Cecil. He and Carlos finished arranging the bloodstone circle, and Carlos moved away to sit outside the circle, while Cecil stayed planted in the middle of it.

“Alright, now, I've done this before so I know what I'm doing, but please don't do anything to interrupt me unless it's like, _really_ important, because it's harder if I have to restart because I have to offer _more_ blood and _honestly_ it's just inconvenient.” Cecil talked as he reached into the pocket of his pants and slid out a ceremonial looking dagger, slipping off the decorated sheath.

Okay, so he carried around bloodstones and engraved knives. Totally normal.

Carlos had to cover his mouth to muffle the sound he made, quite involuntarily, when Cecil took the knife and ran it up his own arm, like he was drawing some sort of symbol into his skin with the sharpened tip, but it bled enough that the symbol was very quickly obscured.

He heaved a shaky sigh and did the same to the other arm, and despite the way he'd spoken almost proudly about the power of his bloodstones before, Cecil didn't enjoy using them when he had to carve himself up to do it. His arms were enough, at least; Carlos wasn't forced to watch him do it again.

Cecil set the knife down, careful not to touch it to any stones, and mindful of where his blood was dripping at any moment. He touched his bloody fingertips to one stone to start, and with that, he began a quiet, low chant in a voice that didn't sound like his, anymore. It sounded hollow, like he'd sounded before when he'd turned against them all.

Neither of his onlookers could understand a single word he said; it didn't even sound like a real language. But Carlos recognized it, somewhat. He'd heard Cecil using it on the phone with... his old Station Management, he'd said.

Continuing in his chant, Cecil touched the next stones, and he stared up at the door as he spoke. He didn't even need to check where the stones were placed; he'd done this so many times before. Carlos watched his boyfriend's eyes glaze over in a sort of opalescent white, like his third eye always (sometimes?) seemed to be.

In no small way, it was bizarre, and _incredibly_ fascinating.

Mx. Mitchell stared in disbelief as a sigil began to etch itself into the door, mirroring the order in which Cecil was activating his bloostones, as if the act of doing so was carving the symbol into the door in the process.

And the fog in the room began to lessen, though the howling screams grew louder, more desperate with each passing moment. It was working. Whatever the hell he was doing, it definitely seemed to be working.

As Cecil's chanting rose in volume, Mx. Mitchell started feeling dizzy. Something was buzzing in her ears, tingling as the air touched her, it seemed, like his very words could burrow into her and shake her of any sense of the real.

When she pitched forward, Carlos caught her and kept her out of the bloodstone circle, carefully scooting her further away. He was getting used to it, the tingle, Cecil's influence. And he was there to help, and so help he would.

By the time the fog had dissipated, sealed back into the office again, Cecil had touched most points in the bloodstone circle. A few, he didn't ever touch. The door was sealed, Station Management was under control, and he finished his chant and let everything drift into silence.

Behind the closed door, the entity could still be heard, incoherent howling and hisses getting through, but no more fog, and the sound was more distant.

Carlos looked at the door a moment, then down at Cecil again, hunched over in his bloodstone circle and panting, like the act of doing it had expended no small amount of effort, and Carlos was sure that was the case.

“Are you... are you okay, Cecil?” he asked when he felt like maybe Cecil would be capable of responding.

He nodded, his voice came out still a little too low, but closer to normal. “I'm fine. Stay back there.” He wasn't looking in Carlos' direction, but stayed where he was, facing the door. Cecil waited until what felt like a considerable amount of time had passed before he finally began to take the bloodstone circle apart, pulling each from the circle in what seemed like a very specific order, starting with the unbloodied stones and ending with the very first one he'd marked with the ink that poured from his veins.

Carlos offered the pouch to him, and Cecil put them all away without bothering to wash the blood off, he figured it would happen later then.

“Can you bandage those up?” Carlos asked, gesturing to his arms. The question had changed a bit from what he would've asked a week ago; the idea of being _unable_ to cover a symbol never would have occurred to him.

But it was all starting to seem sensible, now.

Cecil admitted that it was fine to bandage him, since the ritual was finished, and so Carlos helped him over to the bathroom to lovingly wash the blood from his arms while Cecil stood hunched over the sink and averted his eyes from the mirror.

Instinct told Carlos to do the same.

Once the blood was cleaned, Carlos wrapped his arms with a roll of bandages he'd taken from the first aid kit in the break room, and they made their way back out to the lobby.

Mx. Mitchell was coming around again, dazed, on the carpeted floor. She sat herself up to look around, and for a moment looked about ready to say something interesting, and then for several moments longer, she hesitated.

“What... what happened? When did you get here?” she asked.

Cecil shrugged, “A while ago. Everything is alright now, though. It's all alright.”

She watched Carlos help him over toward the broadcasting booth, and for some reason, the thought never crossed her mind once to stop him from going in.

On the floor, in front of her boss's office, it looked like someone had spilled a bottle of ink. She went to find some paper towels to soak it up again.

Today was weird.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The promised synopsis:
> 
> Kevin begins his broadcast from the University radio station, welcoming everyone to Desert Bluffs--whether he actually believes the desert is Desert Bluffs or wants to make the desert into it isn't entirely clear. He introduces himself, apologizes for taking so long in welcoming everyone, and tells them all about achieving their full productive potential. He readies to introduce his intern, and realizes that Avery is nowhere to be found.  
> Unwilling Intern Avery ambushes Kevin when he leaves the broadcasting booth, bashing him over the head with a lamp until Kevin grabs it and corners Avery with it instead. He threatens Avery, then begins to carve a smile into their face, pausing in-between cuts to taste Avery's blood on the knife. Avery kicks him in the groin and he accidentally bites the knife, slicing his tongue, and Avery thinks they can make a run for it. Kevin captures them and drags them to the broadcasting booth, forcing them to begin broadcasting since his tongue is now messed up and he can't speak as clearly. Avery begins a creepy, too-cheerful sounding broadcast, under threat of death.
> 
> Meanwhile, Carlos and Cecil finally come to meet Mx. Mitchell, and they're both clinging to each other quite closely. It's super cute and dorky. Mx. Mitchell accuses Cecil of bringing all the strange happenings with him, but he argues that it isn't important. They go to the station so that Cecil can use his bloodstones to create a seal for the new Station Management. It's a bloody mess of a ritual, and Cecil seems to somewhat leave himself as he does it, his voice getting oddly distorted and his eyes glazing over white. But the ritual goes off without a hitch, he contains Station Management in their office, and Carlos helps him clean up the blood and bandages the wounds on his arms from the ritual.  
> Mx. Mitchell, who passed out momentarily from proximity to Cecil's influence, wakes up with no recollection of why they were in the station, but does nothing to stop them when Cecil heads for the broadcasting booth. Instead, she tries to clean up Cecil's blood, mistaking it for black ink.
> 
>  
> 
> aaaand that's a wrap on the synopsis.
> 
> I'm glad you all enjoyed my last chapter, I was waiting on introducing that part of Carlos since I didn't want it to be too rushed, and I'm glad I was able to pull it off so well. c: I hope to continue to please as the story continues on~
> 
> thanks as always for the comments/kudos, and thanks everyone for reading!


	20. The Caller

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin decides to make a phonecall. Cecil decides to answer it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wheeeee. WARNING: blood, gore, cannibalism! Synopsis at the end of the chapter.

The desert was vast and endless and beautiful, and the sun didn't go down for years at a time. If there was nothing else to appreciate in the world, it was that.

But Kevin was having trouble appreciating  _ anything,  _ and it wasn't for lack of things to appreciate. It was just hard when people were so...  _ uncooperative _ . They put too much value in things like  _ bodily health _ and  _ free will _ and honestly, it was disgusting. There wasn't a lot that could disgust Kevin, but there was that.

That was disgusting.

He'd left Rachelle in charge of the newest recruits, teachers who she'd sworn were her friends and that she could teach them how to see the light of the Smiling God, and they would be happy. In fact, what ended up happening was not the education of new recruits.

It was Rachelle being too distracted and  _ then _ the new recruits were  _ gone _ . Gone into the desert, gone into... wherever they were gone to. That Sylvia woman, she'd been among them. She'd been silent since waking up a couple of days ago, he couldn't imagine how she'd headed any kind of resistance like Rachelle argued she had.

And she'd gotten everyone out with her? He was supposed to believe that?

Honestly, the whole mess had quite killed his appetite, just thinking about it. Kevin prodded distractedly at the student laid out on his desk, well, on what used to be that strange chemistry professor's desk. Cecil's scientist, or at least the newest of many.

He'd taken the office for his own in a rage, smashed every beaker and smeared blood over certifications on the walls, and littered the floor in illicit reading material. Scientists, always scientists and their  _ books _ and their  _ empirical observations _ and it made him sick. Sick how they worked together and now a group of them were missing. Sick how Cecil could even stand them.

Having lunch on the scientist's desk hadn't really satisfied anything other than the need to redecorate, he took a few bites of fresh meat and just wasn't really feeling it, anymore.

Kevin pulled out the phone he'd stolen from that Dr. Kayali, the one who'd somehow organized an escape of scientists, and he called the only number on there that he knew would connect him through to the other side.

The wait seemed like forever until the other line picked up.

* * *

 

Carlos couldn't have possibly been more mortified than when his phone went off in front of Cecil—he'd asked to be let into the broadcasting booth, he wanted to see how it worked, and now his phone was ringing.

While Cecil was broadcasting.

Without missing a beat, Cecil laughed it off as intentional, “Oh, listeners, it looks like we have a caller for our dear guest Carlos. Carlos, can you tell us who's calling?”

He unlocked the phone and stared for a moment at the caller ID, not sure if he was supposed to be registering that there was anything amiss, but he answered, “Dr. Sylvia Kayali, she's stuck with the University. I guess she must have some questions.”

“Oh, then by all means, answer the phone,” Cecil replied. “Listeners, this is  _ exciting _ , it sounds like we're going to have an interview with someone who's  _ trapped _ in the desert otherworld! She can tell you what it's like there. Carlos, put her on speakerphone.”

So Carlos answered the phone and immediately switched it into speakerphone. Before he could even say hello, Cecil was answering the phone for him. “Dr. Kayali, hello, your timing couldn't have been better. We're in the middle of a broadcast right now with the listening public, is there anything you wanted to say to our listeners?”

A long silence followed, and Carlos picked the phone up, almost certain the call had been dropped, but that wasn't the case. Cecil frowned down at the device, and spoke again, “Are you getting good reception there, doctor? I know you were able to talk to us earlier, I hope my voice is coming in clear.”

“Oh, loud and clear, hi Cecil!” Kevin finally answered with a laugh.

Carlos had to stop him from throwing the phone, grabbing it defensively when Cecil shot out a hand toward it. “ _ You, _ ” his voice came out like pure venom. “What are  _ you _ doing calling Carlos? How  _ dare _ you.”

“This is great though, Cecil,” he replied, “I had  _ no idea _ you were broadcasting! Wait, wait, hello everyone! Hello, citizens! My name is Kevin! Hello from--”

Cecil spoke over him, close to the microphone, “I'm sorry, we seem to be experiencing technical difficulties. We'll return to this segment after a word from our sponsors.” He switched to the ad reel and shut the microphone off.

“That wasn't very polite of you to cut me off, Cecil,” Kevin scolded over the phone. “And you call yourself a radio professional? I think I should teach you how it's done.”

“No,” he whined, “Why are you  _ calling _ us, Kevin?”

Carlos added his own concerns, “A-and why do you have Sylvia's phone?”

A pause followed, and more of Kevin's laughter, “Oh, her? I killed her. Yeah. Actually, here, you should turn on Skype, Cecil.” The noises that followed from his end were nothing Carlos wanted to see on video; it sounded like squelching meat of some sort, and something ripping, bone cracking.

When the phone switched to video, it was without either his or Cecil's agreement, or indeed any video-calling apps installed on the phone at all. At the first sight of blood, he passed the phone to Cecil without any consideration of the fact that his phone might just be thrown.

“Th-think this call's for you,” he stammered out as Cecil took the phone, a morbid curiosity overcoming the urge to just fling it.

Kevin felt a lot better about having lunch with friends, after all, and Cecil could hardly tear his eyes away from the bloody scene as Kevin sunk his teeth into a painstakingly extracted heart, it was his favorite part, Cecil knew that much.

“S-stop.” He finally looked away from the screen. “Why are you doing this?”

He wasn't rude enough to talk with his mouth full, so Kevin finished his bite and swallowed before he replied, “I was hungry. Don't you ever get hungry, Cecil?”

“No!” His reply was almost a bit too quick. “Kevin,  _ why _ are you  _ calling us? _ ”

Carlos wasn't sure he'd heard Cecil sound so uncomfortable and really quite genuinely upset with what he was witnessing. It made him glad he wasn't looking at the screen anymore.

Still, Kevin sounded as upbeat as anything as he replied, “I was bored, I was bored and the reception here is  _ great _ . I thought I'd say hello to your scientist, but it looks like I found you instead! You can tell the scientist that I like his office, too.”

“What are you doing in my office?” Carlos squeaked, voice barely cooperating.

“Eating lunch,” Kevin replied, making sure to rip the flesh loudly with his teeth. Carlos cringed, regretting that he'd even asked. “Oh, and I'm talking to you now,” Kevin added after a moment's pause to finish his mouthful. “But I'm not talking on the radio because Cecil isn't very professional with his radio guests.”

Cecil rolled his eyes. “I didn't invite you onto the show—”

“Oh but  _ could _ you?” Kevin replied with enthusiasm, “You should invite me onto your show, Cecil! I'll even invite  _ you _ onto  _ mine,  _ oh, it'll be just like old times. Remember all the double days, Cecil? Just like old times.” He started laughing, and then trailed off into silence, and the sound of biting into raw meat again.

Carlos wanted to ask, what sort of history did these two even  _ have _ with one another? They clearly knew each other's names, they clearly knew each other's business, they had  _ old times _ together? And they both—wait.

“He's a radio host too?” Carlos asked in a quiet hiss, hoping the phone wouldn't pick up on it and force him to talk to Kevin again.

Cecil nodded. “He's a radio host in... ugh. Desert Bluffs. Or at least he was.”

Kevin  _ giggled _ that time, “You were a radio host in Night Vale, who's misplaced  _ now? _ I'm closer to home than you are!”

“Desert Bluffs is gone, Kevin.  _ You _ helped see to that. You and that wretched... StrexCorp. There were  _ innocent _ people there. Innocent people and children, maybe even some who weren't  _ horrible _ at competitive sports. But where are they now, Kevin? Where?”

The admonishment didn't seem to discourage Kevin's cheerful banter, or his laughter, that eternal laughter. “They're with the Smiling God, Cecil! Why, where else would they be but there? Basking in the eternal light and warmth of the Smiling God.”

Cecil replied in a way that sounded like a terrible comeback, “Maybe  _ you _ should just go bask in the light of the Smiling God for a while.”

A gasp escaped Kevin's lips, “Why, Cecil! That would be ridiculous. I don't  _ need _ to bask in the light of the Smiling God. That warmth and that light are  _ already in me _ . Why, to sit around and bask would just be a waste of my productive potential, think of all the other things I can do with my time now that I've accepted the Smiling God.”

(That settled it, Carlos was convinced he was actually an insane televangelist.)

“You never should have accepted anything,” Cecil snapped with surprising frustration, Carlos thought. “That  _ Smiling God _ of yours isn't anything. It's not even nothing—it's not  _ even _ nothing. It's destruction. The unraveling—”

Kevin interrupted with the loud crack of breaking back another rib, and Cecil's expression twisted. Silence fell, just for a moment, and Carlos could hear Kevin sigh, and it sounded oddly very like Cecil had made the sound.

Their voices sounded different, though, Kevin's was much higher, lighter. More cheerful, though for a moment that almost didn't seem true when he replied, “I don't  _ know _ why you're trying to resist it, Cecil. How long can you run? How  _ many _ places can you run  _ from _ ?” He paused, then asked, “Where is your new Night Vale this time, Cecil?”

“My—” Cecil looked, to Carlos, like a deer in headlights in that moment, and then he tried to recover, “Night Vale is where it has  _ always _ been, Kevin. I'm in—I'm... in... what's this place called again?”

When he looked over at Carlos, the horror spread to the other man; Carlos scoured his mind only to realize that somehow, he'd forgotten it, too. The place where he'd lived his entire life, where he'd grown up, where all his friends lived, his parents, everyone.

Gone. The words were gone, like he'd never known the place to have a name in the first place. His voice escaped shakily, “I don't know.”

Neither he nor Cecil said anything, and the silence held for long enough that Kevin took that as an answer in its own right and began speaking again, “Have you found it then? Your new Night Vale, again? At least I always return to the same Desert Bluffs.”

“This place isn't—” Cecil began, only their privacy in the broadcasting booth was interrupted when Mx. Mitchell shoved the door open, looking frantic.

“Cecil. It's—it's literally. It's raining animals out there. Dead animals. From the sky. It is  _ literally _ raining cats and dogs and other animals, is this  _ supposed _ to happen?”

Kevin's voice over the phone was now nothing but laughter, until Cecil hung the phone up on him and handed it back to Carlos without so much as a word. It seemed to take him a moment to regain his composure to even respond to the confused radio host standing in the door of the broadcasting booth.

“It's alright, Mx. Mitch—uh. Anita, right? Don't worry, I'm sure they don't mean harm. Did you happen to notice, while you were out there, anything unusual about the clouds? Anything... glowing, perhaps?”

She seemed surprised, “Well, yeah, it was a glowing cloud—”

_ “ALL HAIL.” _

The praise escaped all three of their mouths at once, and Cecil was the only one who didn't seem surprised by it. He turned to the microphone with a sigh, though he didn't turn it on immediately, and didn't seem to want to.

“Don't be afraid. I've seen this before,” he muttered to the other two in the booth with him. “So many,  _ many _ times before.”

Cecil flicked on the microphone and began to speak, without chasing the others out of the room or anything. “Listeners, I've just received reports of a strange, glowing cloud—(all hail)—passing overhead. You may see animals falling from—you  _ will _ see animals falling from the sky. They may be as large as lions, tigers, and bears, oh my. I would advise staying indoors until the unusual precipitation passes overhead, as your umbrellas probably won't be able to handle the weight if a rhinoceros lands on you. Nor, for that matter, would you be able to hold it up even if the umbrella did not buckle.”

Carlos and Mx. Mitchell both just stared in silence as he carried on the broadcast, as calm as if he were reporting an ordinary day, an ordinary event, and not large zoo animals falling from the sky.

“I know you will all use common sense, but please, also stay off the road. If anything  _ does _ survive the fall, it would be a terrible shame to hit it with your car. Expect animal-shaped-and-sized-and-identifying hail for... probably a while. The rest of the day, maybe.

More, as the situation develops.”

 

* * *

 

Kevin smiled at the bloody phone in his hands as Cecil hung up, and he pocketed it again. Oh, yes, that  _ was _ going to come in handy.

The last time he found himself trapped here, Kevin had no way to contact the outside world, and how  _ boring _ that had been, by the time he'd come back. Cecil wouldn't be forgetting him again, that easily.

Not as long as he could keep the connection in-tact.

He took another bite of his lunch and smiled, but then, Kevin was always smiling.

Always.

“Welcome to  _ Night Vale _ ,” he mocked to the open air. “Oh, this isn't Night Vale, is it? That doesn't matter. Time is  _ weird _ , oh,  _ reality _ is weird. Oh, I'm Cecil Palmer and I  _ really _ like scientists, a lot. Really a lot.”

Kevin took another bite. And nobody was watching, so he kept talking with his mouth full anyway. “Oh, mister  _ Palmer _ , I'm a scientist. A big, ugly scientist with nasty hair and crooked teeth, I bet. You don't even  _ care _ do you? Oh, you see me for who I  _ really _ am!”

He grabbed an overturned picture frame off the desk, admiring a younger picture of Carlos, still in college and baby-faced. Kevin smeared blood over the pane of glass covering the photo, and it was an improvement.

“I'm a  _ valuable asset _ , mister Palmer. A scientist is a  _ valuable _ asset. You should tell me more about your... tentacles. And your... third eye. And the...ageless horrors that watch you sleep at night. Tell me how our city needs more laws, more rules. Tell me how  _ perfect _ my hair is, how much you  _ love _ me.”

He dug his nails into the half-eaten heart in his hand, and with his other hand, whipped the picture frame across the room.

“You make me sick, Cecil Palmer! You and those... those  _ stupid _ scientists!” He rose from his seat, as if rising up to face some opponent that wasn't standing across from him. “What are you hoping to  _ find _ , what are you hoping to  _ fix _ ? The great unraveling? The endless abyss? You can't fix those, you and your silly scientists can't!”

Kevin shoved the body off his desk, clearing off any remaining office supplies and a dead landline phone while he was at it. He even threw the heart—his favorite part—and didn't go back to pick it up. It could decorate the floor for all he cared.

He sunk back into his seat again, and sulked, but he didn't get to sulk for long.

Rachelle came knocking only a few minutes later, and peered into the room uncertainly. “Kev—uh, Mr. Kevin?” She stayed by the door in case she might need to run.

Slowly, he looked up from the desk, blood mixed and dripping down his face like black and red inks. Kevin scowled, though the slices across his cheeks tried to fight the expression.

“Was there something you  _ needed _ , Rachelle?” he hissed through gritted teeth.

She swallowed hard, and shook her head, and left, quietly closing the door behind her.

“...never going to amount to your full potential like _that_ , Rachelle,” he muttered at the closed door. “You're all miserable. All of you. I don't even _want_ to hire you—I don't even. Want. To do this. Again.”

Kevin buried his face in his hands and squeezed his eyes shut, massaging his palms into them until stars were flickering behind his eyelids. When he opened them again, the room still looked exactly the same, and that was a problem.

He was going to need to change a lot of things in this place, and if everyone else was going to resist or let him down, he was going to need to do it alone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The promised synopsis:
> 
> While eating lunch in Carlos' office, Kevin laments the fact that a group of professors, led by Sylvia Kayali and implied to include other science professors as well, escaped from Rachelle's careless watch. Thoroughly disgusted by this failure, he can scarcely keep himself interested in the dead body he's been snacking on, and decides instead that it would be more fun to call Carlos, since he still has Sylvia's phone, and his is the only number he knows might get him through to Cecil.  
> On the other side, Cecil is busy broadcasting when Carlos' phone goes off, as he's sitting in the booth with Cecil. There's no clear explanation of what was being broadcast, or why Carlos hadn't stayed out of the booth, but Cecil passes off the ringing phone as intentional, and asks who it is. When Carlos reads the caller ID, Cecil is excited to hear from someone in the desert, and tells Carlos to answer. So he answers, and of course it isn't Sylvia on the other end, but Kevin. Once Kevin realizes he's on air, he tries to address Cecil's listeners, and Cecil turns the mic off.  
> Knowing he can't talk to Cecil's listeners anymore, Kevin tries to video chat with Cecil and Carlos, and manages to get a video to come up on Carlos' phone--he immediately passes the phone off to Cecil, at the sight of Kevin eating a student. Cecil stares at this, while Kevin explains that he was just hungry, and asks Cecil if he's ever interested in eating people, and he refuses and asks Kevin why he's calling.  
> After complaining that he just wanted to talk on Cecil's radio show, Kevin offers to give Cecil a slot on his own, looking back cheerfully on what is implied to be a number of double days in the past, where they've traded places temporarily. He refers to the desert as Desert Bluffs, which Cecil denies, saying that Kevin and the Smiling God destroyed Desert Bluffs, erasing it from existence. Kevin talks about the light of the Smiling God, urging Cecil to give up and accept it, while Cecil insists that he never will.  
> Kevin then asks Cecil where his new Night Vale is located, since he's located his new Desert Bluffs in the desert otherworld. Immediately defensive, Cecil denies that anyplace could be Night Vale except for the place that he just came from, but when prompted for the name of the town they are currently staying in, neither he nor Carlos can remember the name of it anymore. As he's trying to argue that nothing odd is happening to the town, Mx. Mitchell bursts into the recording booth with news of a strange glowing cloud dropping animals all over town. Cecil hangs up on a laughing Kevin, and addresses the situation, explaining that it isn't worth being afraid of, because he's experienced it before.  
> Cecil delivers a broadcast warning citizens to be careful of the Glow Cloud, but not to worry, because everything will be alright.  
> Back in the desert, Kevin goes off on a rant in the privacy of Carlos' office, rambling about Night Vale and about Cecil's obsession with scientists, something he believes to be related to Cecil's desire to fix the great unraveling caused by the Smiling God. As he's throwing a tantrum and flinging junk around the room, Rachelle peeks her head in and tries to get his attention--when he yells at her, she leaves just as quickly. Despite his typical enthusiasm for fixing things and encouraging productivity, Kevin seems almost unwilling in setting the gears into motion to get things done, but realizes that if he wants anything done, he's going to have to do it himself
> 
> whew, that was a doozy, summarizing important conversations hah. if Kevin was less nasty about his lunch, maybe the warnings wouldn't be necessary.
> 
> I'm having some fun getting more into the mechanics of how this change is going to work, I'm looking forward to moving forward!
> 
> thanks for reading/commenting as always c:


	21. The Experiment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos and Cecil engage in a little...experiment to take their mind off things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoa, sorry for vanishing, I had a rough week, but here I am back with... surprise smut!
> 
> advance warning for a good quality fucking, but rest assured I consider myself a firm believer in consentacles so.
> 
> if I'm asked, I'll synopsis, but otherwise I'm assuming it's easy enough to read up til the point where they wander off to the bedroom if you want to know what they're chattering about...and rest assured the rest is pretty devoid of plot content other than knowing that yay, they like each other woo.

"So how...many times has all this crazy stuff happened before?"

Carlos asked the question over morning coffee. Well, Cecil was mostly drinking all the coffee. Carlos had made breakfast. (It was cereal.)

(They'd gone back to Carlos' apartment for the night. He was surprised that Cecil barely seemed to recall the bloodstone ritual he'd done to seal Station Management the day before, but Cecil  _ had _ been pretty wiped by the time they got home.)

"It's been a few times," Cecil replied vaguely. His hands shook as he gripped his coffee mug, an effect he promised was caffeine withdrawal and nothing else. Carlos had inspected his arms. The markings he'd carved in hadn't healed yet.

Carlos frowned, "How  _ many _ times, Cecil?"

"I don't  _ know. _ "

Since they'd met, Carlos had gone from seeing Cecil as someone who barely understood anything, to someone who knew everything, and hearing his denial of information, it was unsettling. How could somebody just not know that?

But he couldn't get out another complaint, he couldn't keep prodding at Cecil like he'd been doing since the night before, because when he looked over, Cecil had dropped his coffee mug to bury his face in his hands. Coffee dripped down over the edge of the table, dripped down onto the floor. Cecil was shaking.

"Cecil...? Are you...?"

He rose from his seat, making his way to the other side of the table, cautiously. Cecil didn't pull his hands away from his face, he didn't say a word, and he didn't protest when Carlos reached over the back of his chair and wound his arms around his shoulders in a hug. If anything, Cecil leaned into it.

"I don't know what's going on," Carlos murmured, "I don't know anything that's going on at all, and that's a first, I'm a scientist. I always know what's going on. But if you want to tell me about it, now, or if you don't. I'll listen, or I won't. Okay? Up to you." He squeezed Cecil's shoulders nice and tight.

(It was weird to think, he knew Cecil could play games with people's heads, he could make them forget things or do things, if everything else failed he could rip them limb from limb. And he was shaking like a terrified child.)

Cecil's voice came out uncharacteristically quavery, "I don't know how many times I've done this, Carlos. I don't know how many times. I don't know how many glowing clouds--allhail--I don't know how many...how many  _ dog parks _ and  _ radio shows _ and  _ Station Managements _ and..." the list trailed off.

It hadn't even occurred to Carlos to think that he wasn't the only one who'd forgotten some of the things that had been happening. "It's okay, if you forgot a little," he attempted to comfort. "I think that's that Void effect, right? Isn't that what you were telling me?"

"The--" Cecil stopped dead.

Carlos pulled back, confused at the sudden silence, and it was plain to see that Cecil's demeanor had changed entirely in that split second. Like he'd been reminded of something, something very important and grounding and the threat that he'd float off into space was abolished in that moment alone.

He looked up at Carlos, all three eyes fixed on his face (or at least he thought the third one was, it was sort of a milky purplish-blackish-where-was-it-staring?). "The Void.  _ Nothing _ probably knows how many times this has happened. And I--oh, how could I forget?"

His confidence sank again. Cecil leaned forward against the table, shoulders hunched, elbow resting in spilled coffee that soaked into his shirt sleeve.

"You keep talking about the Void like it's..a person, Cecil. The Void  _ knows _ things, the Void  _ speaks _ , the Void likes things, or doesn't like things, or..." He trailed off, took a moment, and regained control of his words. "How can nothing have opinions, Cecil? How can nothing know and think and speak?"

Cecil's voice was a quiet squeak, "Because I speak for it."

Carlos' brows furrowed in confusion as he tried to ask for clarification, "You speak for the Void? How does somebody speak for nothing, Cecil? Does it think?"

"Yes." He turned to face Carlos again. "Yes, yes, yes, sweet Carlos. It thinks. It knows."

Despite himself, he took a few steps back as Cecil rose from his seat. "Knows what?"

Cecil laughed, "You know, that's a great question. Everything? Nothing? I mean, nothing must know itself, right? Of course, none of us ever truly know ourselves, Carlos." He looked away. "It doesn't matter how long you have. You never really know yourself at all."

"I don't know what you mean, Cecil." And he didn't. But he knew that Cecil was acting strangely, and something was possibly terribly wrong, and he didn't know whether it was something that was wrong with the past or the here and now.

It was terrifying to imagine that something else could be wrong here, now.

But Cecil didn't clarify anything. He advanced on Carlos, in the sort of way that made him back away more quickly, until he was backed against the wall.

Then, rather than whatever some part of him feared Cecil was going to do, that strange man, that abomination with pretty eyes, he buried his face in Carlos' shirt and huddled close to him, like his life depended on the contact.

Slowly, Carlos wrapped his arms around Cecil and pulled him in for a proper hug. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I don't know what's going on."

"I don't either," Cecil admitted into the fabric of his shirt--

(Carlos was trying not to think about it, he was trying not to think about where Cecil's face was placed, he was trying not to think about not wearing the binder, trying to remind himself about his bruised ribs, he  _ needed _ to just take a few days, it would all be  _ fine _ .)

\--and the admission was followed up with a quiet, miserable little laugh that barely sounded like a laugh at all. "I don't know how many times I've done this, I don't know how many times... Kevin has called me at the radio station, or threatened boyfriends, or asked me to join his...  _ horrible _ god. I've done it before. I've done it before many times."

"I'm sorry," Carlos said again. "I wish I could stop it for you. Whatever's going on."

He sighed, quiet and half muffled. "I'm tired of it. I thought--I hoped--maybe it was going to be different, but it isn't. I can leave Night Vale, but it won't leave me."

“Is... ...what's going to happen to us?” Carlos asked, and he was surprised by the frantic, clinging hug that Cecil gave him in response, like there was something suddenly so horrible in the answer to a simple question, it made his blood run cold.

Cecil's words didn't help, either. “I'm so sorry, oh, wonderful, lovely Carlos, I was going to leave. I was going to leave, none of this would have happened. Something else would have happened, something is always happening, but maybe—no. I'm not going to...wax philosophical, you scientists don't like that, do you?”

“I...don't mind it, Cecil,” he clarified. “I think it's sort of cute, actually.”

A whine escaped Cecil's lips. “Oh,  _ Carlos _ , you're too nice to me.”

Before Carlos could argue anything, Cecil was kissing him, and he was kissing back, and that tingle was there—the same feeling whenever he touched Cecil—but it was nice, now. Pleasant. Enough to send a shiver up his spine, not enough to knock him off his feet.

And with that realization, the realization how long he'd been waiting for a real, proper chance to kiss Cecil, like he'd never kissed anyone before. Cecil pressed up against him, pinning him to the wall as they kissed, and he wrapped his arms around Cecil's waist and tried to tug him closer still, closer still than they could ever get, as two separate entities.

(It was all at once incredibly hot, and incredibly embarrassing if he'd had the presence of mind to think how they looked, two grown men, old enough to control themselves better and kissing like horny teenagers. Getting to know each other for the first time.)

When he felt Cecil's tongue and it wasn't like the other boys he'd kissed, he didn't even question it, no, he just rolled with it. No pauses to investigate, but _ god  _ he had a long tongue, didn't he? That could be so useful for—

(Pure thoughts, pure thoughts. Oh, fuck pure thoughts. This wasn't Sunday school.)

Cecil's wandering hands distracted him when he felt one experimentally rubbing against the inside of his thigh, but no further, like Cecil wasn't sure what he was supposed to go near or not. Carlos hesitated, but grabbed his hand to guide it up between his legs, give him permission, at least touching over his jeans, and Cecil smiled into the kiss. He was surprised, with Cecil's enthusiasm and explorations, that he was the one to pull back first.

Carlos opened his eyes again, a frown crossing his face. “Cecil...?”

But the look on Cecil's face looked out of place, riddled with guilt, he wouldn't even look Carlos in the eyes. Like the realization had just taken him, he muttered a miserable apology and, “I shouldn't have stayed. I—I didn't want to leave...you. I shouldn't be here, everything that's going to happen, everything that's happening—”

He took a step forward and pulled Cecil into a hug, this time Carlos was the one with his face stuffed in Cecil's shirt, more how their heights would naturally work out. “I  _ want _ you here, Cecil. I want you here.”

“You...do?” he asked, trying to pull back enough so he could get a look at Carlos' face, like checking him for sincerity, as if it were some test.

“ _ God _ , I do. You're... the most scientifically interesting, the most—you're  _ amazing _ , Cecil.” He let out a nervous giggle. “I've never met anyone like you, before. And I mean—yeah, so the third eye is pretty  _ cool _ and the tentacles—” he shuddered and let out an embarrassed little laugh “—but that's...that's not the only thing!”

Cecil watched him as he continued trying to formulate his thoughts into words, “You're so...  _ sweet _ , Cecil. You've been so nice and so understanding and—I don't want you upset with yourself. For what's going on. It's not your fault.”

Here, he had to interrupt. “But it  _ is _ my fault, Carlos. I brought it here, I've...brought it  _ everywhere _ , Night Vale comes with me, and I—”

Carlos cut him off with a kiss, only pulling back once he was sure Cecil wasn't going to try talking again. He replied, “I don't care if it came with you, Cecil. I don't care what you brought with you, I  _ know _ you didn't mean to. I know you're not like that, and I mean... you brought  _ you _ here, too.”

He tried to protest, but the look Carlos was giving him threatened to buckle his knees, threatened to melt him on the spot. Cecil couldn't help but let out a self-conscious little laugh.

“Now, listen,” Carlos said, pulling back. “I...know there's a lot of... I don't know. Crazy stuff,  _ weird _ things going on. And—as a scientist. It is  _ totally _ my duty to investigate and...experiment and figure out what to do but...” he trailed off.

Cecil prompted, “But...?”

“It's been crazy. And it's getting crazier. And I don't really want to think about it right now and you  _ did _ say we could um, sort of. Experiment. A little. Ourselves.” Carlos went quiet again, fidgeting nervously and refusing to look at Cecil's face, and what a loss because he would've seen the deep purple blush that spread across his cheeks in that moment.

“Well, I mean, if you  _ want _ , I mean...” Cecil trailed off into nervous giggling of his own.

Carlos nodded vigorously, “Yes. I mean. Of course—yes. If you...want?” Finally, he lifted his eyes up to meet Cecil's, and Cecil nodded back with enthusiasm, and then they were heading for the bedroom and Cecil was already working his way out of his coffee-stained shirt.

He took a seat on the bed, and Carlos sat down with him and helped, and it was a bit of a careful process to try not to pull the bandages off his arms in the process.

A giggle escaped Carlos' lips. “You got coffee on your bandages.”

“Oh.” Cecil looked down, and indeed he had; the bandages wrapped up his left arm weren't just splotched with dried, inky blood, but the dark brown of his coffee as well.

“Should we probably change—” Carlos began, only to be interrupted with a kiss.

Cecil pulled back after a moment. “It's fine.” And he dropped his shirt on the bedroom floor, scooting a little closer to Carlos, who by now had realized that at some point  _ he _ was probably going to have to start taking his shirt off, too.

(Oh, maybe experimenting  _ wasn't _ the best idea.)

But Cecil's kiss snapped him back into the moment, and he reciprocated, desperate, trying again to pull Cecil closer, and closer still. It was only Cecil's questing hands, wandering up his shirt, that could have made him stop his frantic kissing. Carlos pulled back and said, breathless, “Not the shirt. The shirt stays on.”

It wasn't perfect, it couldn't hide everything, just a baggy t-shirt with some science joke printed across the chest (Ah! The Element of Surprise!) but it was better than hanging out in the open; he'd at least keep that much privacy.

Cecil nodded and repeated, “The shirt stays on.” Then he asked, a grin playing at the corner of his lips, “What about the pants? Do those come off?”

Carlos considered this, flush with excitement at the suggestion and yet—no. He wasn't going to let his self-consciousness ruin it, Cecil had said  _ nothing _ would change his feelings, nothing. So he nodded, he replied, squeaky, “Those come off.”

Before he knew what was happening, Cecil took that remark quite seriously and was helping him out of his pants; not just with his hands, no. He was surprised with the speed that those heavy black tentacles had come back out of hiding, some caressing his sides, his thighs as others freed him of his pants like Cecil had more than enough practice doing this.

(And, god, those things had the fine motor skills to pull pants off? He even saw one undo his fly, what  _ else _ could they—pure thoughts. No. Wait. No pure thoughts. He had to break that ridiculous impulse.)

He climbed on top of Carlos, who was stripped down to his boxers and his shirt and giggling self-consciously as Cecil rolled him onto his back to kiss him once again. It wasn't a bad place to be, underneath that strange, beautiful man. He kissed back again, and let Cecil pin him, enjoying the position and the ministrations of Cecil's tentacles gliding along his skin, soft touches sending shivers up his spine and enthusiasm like a spark.

Cecil pulled back from the kiss only to ask permission, “Can the boxers come off?” and Carlos  _ loved _ that, and he nodded and then Cecil was helping him out of those as easily as he'd removed his jeans before.

Carlos interrupted him before he could resume the kiss, voice low, “Yours too.”

“ _ Oh _ , well. If you insist.” Cecil sat up again, and in a few seconds' time seemed to go from the thought of just tugging his pants off to making a show of it. With a wink, he unzipped his slacks and let his tentacles work them off, and Carlos wasn't sure whether to find it hot or...no, it was just pretty nerdy.

He giggled a little to himself, but he was pleased with what he was seeing, observing every inch of flesh like a masterpiece he'd been waiting to see, following the lines of shifting tattoos down his thighs, greedily staring at Cecil stripped down just to his underwear and then hesitated.

And seemed uncertain.

“Is something wrong, Cecil?” he asked, surprised by the sudden halt in activity. Cecil seemed to reason this out with himself a moment before shrugging and moving on to strip off his underpants because hey, no going back, right?

Carlos couldn't help the sound he made when he realized, okay, so Cecil was a  _ bit _ less biologically human, even still. Some instinct told him it was wrong. Every bit of weird alien sci-fi he'd gotten excited over in his college years argued that it was right.

Cecil watched, waiting on his judgment, like he expected Carlos to be so surprised by the presence of that weird, tentacled organ that he ran from the room.

“Wow,” he breathed out, moving closer. “I had—no  _ idea _ .”

The first words to escape Cecil's lips were an apology, the beginning of an explanation, but Carlos interrupted him.

“No, this is... ...that's... ...it's really  _ cool _ , Cecil.” It wasn't exactly grade-A sexy talk, but he couldn't think of anything else to say at the moment, admiring the slick black tentacles— 

(Oh, god, if he could go back and tell his younger self,  _ yes _ , fantasize away, anything is possible.  _ Anything _ . Even gorgeous, strange men with voices like honey and  _ tentacles. _ )

—as they sort of twisted around, as though excited. And he wanted to ask how it  _ worked _ , he wanted to understand the strange anatomy, but just as badly, he wanted to understand how it  _ felt _ , and really, that won out.

“You're... you don't think it's weird?” Cecil asked, watching him with uncertainty, but Carlos had broken out into a very pleased grin as he crawled over to lean over Cecil. Lean in close, very close, right up to his ear.

He whispered, “No, I think it's hot.”

Cecil flushed purple with embarrassment, tried to say something, and decided the simpler action was just to start kissing him again. He knew how to do  _ that _ with his mouth, whether his words were failing him or not, and Carlos knew how to kiss back and Cecil didn't have to admit that Carlos' proximity stole his wittiness away.

Not that Carlos would have cared. He wasted no time in beginning to investigate the unfamiliar organ that Cecil had where any other human would have been a little more...anatomically dull, really. His fingers came down to glide over the slick surface of Cecil's tentacles, and he shivered at the sudden contact and bit Carlos' lip hard enough to draw blood.

“O-oh, I'm sorry—” Cecil began. Carlos interrupted him with another kiss, and paid no mind to the blood and didn't let Cecil worry about it either. He kept his fingers occupied, and Cecil's protests melted away quickly when it was all he could do to try and keep his composure, keep the sounds to himself—

(It had been a while, okay, it had been an  _ incredibly _ long while. Wait. Cecil wasn't in charge of the narration here.)

—as he pulled back from the kiss again, but let Carlos keep inspecting. As the inspection turned from seeing how his anatomy worked to seeing how to work with it for reactions, the pleased curling of slick black tendrils over his fingers.

Cecil leaned back with a sigh and shut his eyes, momentarily just basking in the feeling as Carlos familiarized himself and figured out what he was doing (and  _ fearlessly _ , damn). In return, his thicker, limblike tentacles resumed familiarizing themselves (within reason) with Carlos; the curve of his hips, the shape of his thighs, anything Cecil didn't think would get him in trouble for touching without asking first.

Then, unexpectedly, he felt Carlos grab one of his larger appendages, and opened his eyes half-expecting a scolding only to be met with the scientist running his tongue along the sensitive tip of the tentacle before he sucked it into his mouth.

The gasp Cecil let out in response slipped before he could stifle it, only encouraging Carlos further as he tongued the tip of the tentacle, and the larger ones weren't even the most sensitive but  _ damn _ Cecil could watch him doing it all day.

When he finally pulled Cecil's tentacle from his mouth, the same sticky black substance had inked up his tongue, as he'd been trying to clean off his binder the morning before. Without hesitation, he leaned in to kiss Cecil again, the taste of salt and seawater overwhelming the coffee that he'd tasted in their kisses, earlier.

Cecil pushed him back onto the bed again, gently, and kissed him hard before he came up for air again and to ask, quietly, “Do you want more?”

In that moment, he could not have possibly nodded  _ enough _ . Cecil laughed at the enthusiasm, and not the awkward self-conscious little sounds from before, no, he was regaining his bearings. “Alright. Just tell me if I ever need to stop.”

As he wound a pair of tentacles around Carlos' legs to reposition him, the scientist let out a giggle, and he was pretty sure the best word to describe it would be “giddy.” Good. He'd start easy, and make sure Carlos stayed just as enthusiastic, as he lowered his head between his lover's thighs to warm him up with a kiss.

That was really the most hesitant moment. Once Carlos was alright with that, it was something of a go-ahead, a green light. Permission to please. Cecil tested the skill of his long tongue but he  _ knew _ that was already good and he pulled back with the taste of the scientist on his lips and a devious smile before he leaned in and resumed.

If the tentacles were hot, he'd give Carlos what he wanted.

A moan escaped Carlos' lips as the tip of the first tentacle penetrated him unexpectedly from below, with Cecil's tongue still working magic on his clitoris; the benefits of a lover with extra appendages were many, indeed. And with the way that each long, thick appendage could lubricate itself at will, that wasn't going to be an issue, either.

Carlos arched his back, squirming in the half-restrained position Cecil held him in, gasping with each new movement, the sensations he'd  _ dreamed _ in all his most private of fantasies. When Cecil asked again if he wanted more, he nearly yelled his response, “Y-yes!”

With a pleased chuckle, Cecil straightened up again, to lower Carlos down from where he'd been kissing him a moment before, and into his lap. As the smaller, slicker tentacles slid easily inside him, the scientist wrapped his legs around Cecil's waist and adjusted his position to face him again, seated in his lap. He let out a quiet moan, as Cecil continued to penetrate, to fill him up more fully than anyone else had before.

Slowly, he started to rock against Cecil's hips, letting out a moan here, or a pleased gasp there, making no effort whatsoever to muffle a single sound. That wasn't how his experiment was meant to play out, no, he wasn't ashamed to enjoy it.

Cecil's hands on his hips began to guide him, but the real attention came from slick, black appendages, from the  _ incredible _ feeling of rippling muscle that reacted with his movements, curled around and found  _ just _ where to move to next. From the second long, thick tentacle that slid alongside the first larger appendage, filling him almost uncomfortably, but oh, it felt  _ incredible _ , he moaned in Cecil's ear and his lover rolled him back onto the bed once more, grinning down at him.

In their new position, Carlos squirmed beneath Cecil's weight, pushed increasingly closer to the edge as he stopped taking charge of the movements, let Cecil take command, let Cecil rub against him, the motion of his tentacles bringing out sounds that Carlos would've never imagined himself making. He barely noticed that Cecil had stopped muffling himself.

(But his voice—that voice—it was lovely  _ any _ sound it was making.)

Carlos reached orgasm first with little more than a high-pitched gasp, he was seeing stars, letting Cecil grind against him until he came moments later, with Carlos riding out his climax longer on the motion of Cecil's own finish.

The moments that followed were serene, blissful, until first Carlos came back around to reality, and then Cecil after. He slowly disentangled himself from Carlos, scooting down toward the foot of the bed with a nervous chuckle.

“So that was...” Cecil trailed off, fidgeting.

Carlos laughed, still breathy. “G-god. I need a shower...maybe a trip to the laundromat.” More conspicuous than the usual, Cecil's black lubricant certainly made a bit of a scene, all over his lover's thighs and the bedsheets. He looked away in embarrassment as Carlos rose shakily to his feet, testing to see that he could still stand.

(He'd probably feel a little sore, later, he knew that much was coming on.)

But before he headed off to clean himself he planted a kiss on Cecil's cheek. “Maybe next time, not so early in the morning.” He smoothed back Cecil's hair and laughed a little. “But I mean. Next time. I'm counting on next time, right?”

Cecil nodded, and confirmed, “Next time.”

After Carlos had left the room, he let himself perform the necessary celebratory fist pump. Hell yes. Cute scientist boyfriend? Check.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's a wrap. and hopefully, a good one. I'm not generally big on writing porny scenes into the middle of bigger stories so...well, this is an experiment for me, too. let me know what you guys think, yay or nay, etc.
> 
> thanks as always for comments/kudos! I'll try and keep up an update schedule as well as I can manage, but it may be more like weekly for a while.


	22. Sands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out in the desert, Dr. Kayali and her group take a rest stop and try to plan their next steps. Back at the University, a prisoner receives a visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two-part warning:  
> 1\. The desert scene: the worst warning is mild blood. Nothing worse than the creepy carved smile thing.
> 
> 2\. The University scene: blood, gore, viscera, rot, you name it. It's not a fun time.
> 
> Synopsis to follow.

The desert was endless, and beautiful in its endlessness, but Kevin looked out at it disapprovingly. Somewhere into that endless expanse of sand, three scientists and a small cluster of students had vanished.

Conceivably, they could do nothing to him or anyone else if they returned, even if they had all the time in the world to regroup and devise plans. Kevin reasoned that he would have the whole University under his control by that time. The hiring process had started, already.

(It wasn't going well. He'd been forced more than just once or twice to convert professors as he'd done to Dr. Baker. Rachelle was useless in the hiring process, and Kevin had to withdraw from it when the split from his third eye felt like it would tear the rest of the way open. Anyone else could be persuaded with violence. He would tend to it later.)

But what concerned him wasn't that the scientists would return with the knowledge to take him down. No. He'd seen, out there, that the desert wasn't as endless as it seemed, and with the reception that he'd received from the masked army he'd been sharing the desert with, any chance that they would be turned against him wasn't a good one.

So he hoped they wouldn't find the giant masked army, he hoped they wouldn't come back. Just stay out in the desert, melt under the sun, succumb to the smiling god.

He watched the desert expand into forever, and some part of him missed it.

From the distance they had fled to, the group could see nothing but sand. And while they knew the desert wasn't endless, and somewhere the University stood, as far as the eye could see there was nothing. To say the least, it was discouraging.

Dr. Kayali had led them along, for long enough. They paused under the glaring sun to regroup, the students sharing what little water was left among them. A few feet away, Dr. Crewe collapsed into the sand with a groan.

“Dave, get up,” she grumbled, “You're a grown fucking man.”

His words, lost into the sand, were followed by coughing as he realized the error of his decision. She didn't even glorify that with a response. A few feet away, a psychology professor who both of them scarcely knew sat down in the sand with a sigh. The math teacher they had originally departed with had turned back after hours of sand, promising anything was better than dying in the desert.

They hadn't escaped from the University to go down so easily.

After Kevin had arrived, he'd gotten it very quickly into his head to capture any science professor he could; well, with Carlos gone and Rachelle... _influenced_ , there hadn't been many left. Dr. Kayali was tied up in her own office, and when she woke, Dave had joined her, and the heads of the math and psychology departments, which she supposed Kevin thought only scientific enough to bother grabbing one from each.

Or something. None of them had decided what he had planned, but he'd been promising to show them all the same light that had claimed Rachelle so easily.

That was unacceptable.

Dr. Kayali wiped at her face with the back of her hand, expressionless because frowning was painful. She'd taken one for the team when she realized what was coming if she didn't.

(“Rachelle, I simply love your smile, it's so sincere. Do you think you could show me how to give myself one?” she'd asked. Rachelle had untied her. That was her first mistake.)

The slice up the right side of her face had scabbed over, but every time she moved her jaw too much, the wound cracked open and bled again. She tried to keep any sand from getting into the cut, the last thing she needed was an infected face wound.

(“Can I do the other side, myself?” she'd asked through gritted teeth, trying to keep her composure. Rachelle handed the knife over, and with it, her upper hand.)

Once they'd freed themselves, there was no kind of plan for where to go next. How to plan their resistance against whatever it was that Kevin had in mind. The students, they found already in the desert, a cluster mixed of art and science students alike, proof that they'd banded together anyone who wanted to leave. Gone out in search of answers, something.

Looking over the forlorn faces of the students— _her_ students, they were hers now, whoever they had been before—Dr. Kayali couldn't linger too long on those who had met with Kevin before. They knew what they were up against. The fresh smiles on their faces were proof.

It might have been easier to lay down in the desert and give up, but that wasn't what they escaped for. It wasn't what any of them were there for. So she found her voice again, raw as it was, and she bled her wounded cheek as she spoke to the assembled group.

“We're going to need to keep moving, soon,” she explained. “As far as we know, the sun never sets. And we're running out of water.”

(Truth be told, she was already out. So were the other professors. They had agreed, in private, to share their water among their students. It was only right.)

“Do you even know where we're going, Sylvia?” the psychology professor asked quietly. She knew their name to be Theo, and while helpful whenever necessary, they'd kept their space and quiet during the walk. Perhaps that was wiser, conserving energy. Dave had spent the entire time complaining.

Dr. Kayali hesitated before answering, “I don't, professor Victor. I know only where we're coming from, but I know the desert cannot really be endless. It simply _can't_.”

“I don't think it needs to be endless to kill a man,” they pointed out, to silence from all sides as nobody could come up with an argument.

At length, Dr. Kayali asked the gathered group, “Does anybody here still have their phone? Mine was confiscated, as well as the other professors.”

A murmur spread throughout the cluster of students, and she spoke over it, “Unless your phone was confiscated from you, I know you all have one, and frankly, I wouldn't care if I didn't need one. I want to make a call.”

Not everyone had heard the news yet that their phones still worked, but with a promise she wouldn't run the batteries out or read over anyone's texts, she was eventually presented with a phone. Dr. Kayali sat in the sand for a moment and dialed a number she hoped she was remembering accurately.

The other line went to voicemail as Carlos' phone rang away on the kitchen counter, all but forgotten. “Hey, it's Carlos, I'm probably busy doing science! Or something. You can leave a message and I'll get back to you _really_ soon, promise. Just leave a message after the tone.”

Dr. Kayali sighed at the message, waiting for the tone before she spoke.

“Carlos. It's Dr.—...it's Sylvia. Please, get back to me _really soon_ , if that's really a promise. There's... twelve of us, out here. We've left the University, but we don't know what to do next. I know you're probably still talking to that... Cecil? Individual. I need—we _all_ need to talk to him, Carlos.” She massaged her temples, tried to correct her words to sound appropriate for the situation. “If anybody knows what to do about this, it's him. We _need_ his help. Kevin has already been killing students, and Rachelle—...I don't know what he did to her.”

“Please,” she finished, “Call back as soon as you can. I don't have my phone anymore, but you can call this number—it's a student's, but we're all out here, and we need help. I hope to hear from you soon.”

After she hung up, she thanked the young man for his cell phone and passed it back to him. “Hopefully

Dave took advantage of the silence. “Uh, guys...? There's something... out there.” He pointed, and several sets of eyes followed the line of his gesture out to a blinking red light, far overhead in the sky.

It must have been standing on something. Maybe it was a tower, maybe a mountain that blended into the apparently endless horizon of sand. Regardless of where the red light stood, one thing was certain: it must head meant civilization.

Maybe civilization meant shelter. Maybe civilization meant _help_.

Dr. Kayali addressed the group, “Alright. Is anyone opposed to investigating that light?”

Silence followed.

“Alright. We break for another ten minutes, and then we go.”

* * *

 

Since the broadcast some days ago, Avery hadn't left the broadcasting booth.

It wasn't that they were locked in, but Kevin had made it abundantly clear, if he caught them outside of the booth, he would do far worse than finish the half-carved smile on their face. So Avery sat in the corner of the room, stared out at nothing, and really reflected on how they'd fucked up so bad to get there, which they couldn't fathom the reason for, anyway.

Smeared across the walls and all over the radio equipment, blood and viscera had gone bad; the fresh glistening color smeared everywhere had dried or begun to rot. Avery was used to the stench by now, as much as anyone could become used to the smell of human death, but the person who pushed open the door to the booth wasn't used to it at all.

The smell hit her nose and she was gagging, trying to cover her face like she could block it out. Avery barely looked up from the blood-crusted carpet, and they didn't attempt to make eye contact with her. Which was fine. She wasn't trying to make eye contact either.

Before they knew what had even happened, she'd already left the booth.

Avery sighed. So it goes.

For a while, they sat in silence again, an indeterminable while really, since all the clocks in the building had quit working. The old wall clock smiled down at them with an unconvincing 11:09 like a crooked smile, folded up into a V-shape.

Time passed in a haze. Everything passed in a haze, dizzy, overheated, dehydrated. Avery had watched the blood dry, watched flies begin to buzz around the decaying organs spread here and there about the room.

They hadn't touched the smile carved into their face, for fear of infection. It had crusted over, carved back just on the one side, with the other cheek still pristine, reserved, Kevin's next threat waiting to be enacted when Avery next misbehaved.

The door cracked open again, and they didn't look up until they were sure it wasn't Kevin. It was the figure from before, she'd come back better prepared, and stepped into the room with a ventilation mask on her face, caution in her shaky steps, a salmon colored dress still untouched by the blood that Avery was sure had covered everything, everywhere.

Then her eyes fell on them, leaned into the corner. For a moment, they were sure she'd leave the room. They tried consciously not to make eye contact, until it was clear that instead, she was only coming closer.

"Are you okay?" they heard her whisper, before she crouched down, planting her hands into the dried blood on the floor, for balance. Maybe it was partially the mask, maybe their own disorientation, but Avery couldn't have recognized the woman crouched before them if their life had depended on it.

Avery's voice worked, but they weren't sure how well as they replied, "Peachy." Like her dress. Sort of. A quiet laugh escaped before they could stop it.

Her brows furrowed, but they couldn't see the frown they were sure was under that mask. "I'm here to work on the equipment, at least that's what I was told to do--what _happened_ in here? I mean, I suppose I can guess."

She gestured vaguely at the blood and gore, and they didn't even bother looking, because they knew what she was pointing at already. Why did anyone need to ask?

Horrible things had happened. Were happening. Were going to keep happening. They answered her in question form, "What time is it...?"

"I don't know," she replied, "Daytime. Always daytime. I guess time becomes meaningless, that way." Carefully, she reached out to touch the back of her hand to their forehead, cool skin feeling the heat radiating off of them. Of course Avery was feverish. The slice in their cheek had mostly stopped bleeding, but the oozing hadn't stopped overall, only now it was clearly infected.

"We need to get you sorted out," she murmured, pulling her hand away. "You're burning up, and your face is a _mess_."

Avery replied quietly, "I can't leave. Kevin--he won't let me. Kevin won't let me."

This only seemed to stall her a moment before she reassured them, "I'll come back, then. We'll get you fixed up, okay? You don't have to get yourself in trouble."

They nodded, and wanted to protest when she rose up to her feet again to leave, but the exact words failed them. What were they supposed to say? Don't go, please, stay in this bloody, godforsaken booth forever? Take me with you?

She said she was going to come back. Avery stared as she left, and a while afterward, slipping back into the endless stream that waiting around had become.

Outside the booth, Rachelle pulled off her mask and left it on the nearest table for later. Nothing would be quite as embarrassing as admitting to Kevin that she couldn't handle the smell of his decorations. No, that wouldn't work at all.

But she could help fix up his intern, and maybe he would like her better, then.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Synopsis:
> 
> Kevin gazes out at the desert. Maybe it's thoughtful, maybe it's angry. He knows that several people have escaped out into the desert, and hopes they won't run into the Masked Army or anything, because that might prove too useful to them. He's taking a break from the vaguely described "hiring process" that seems to involve violence, and conversions via the light of the Smiling God, due to pain from his third eye.
> 
> Meanwhile, in the desert, a mixed group of Dr. Sylvia Kayali, Dr. Dave Crewe, and a psychology professor named Dr. Theo Victor are leading a group of around 9-10 students away from the University. Outlook: bleak. The three professors have given up their water to the students, and even so, the students are almost out of water.  
> When they finally stop to take a break, Dave sinks into the sand, defeated. Dr. Kayali tells him to grow the fuck up, and there's a flashback of how they managed to escape: Kevin had ordered the containment of anyone considered...sciencey enough to be a threat. So the three professors, as well as a math professor, were all restrained in Dr. Kayali's office, watched over by Rachelle. Dr. Kayali asked Rachelle to show her how to carve a smile in her own face, behaving as though she'd been converted, and once Rachelle had finished the first side and handed the knife to her to do the other, she overpowered Rachelle and the group escaped. The math professor, nameless, returned to the University after realizing there was nothing out in the desert.  
> When Theo asked where they were headed, she replied that she wasn't sure, but that they just needed to keep moving somehow. During the rest break, she borrows a student's phone and leaves a message on Carlos' phone, asking for him to call back, because they need help from Cecil and don't know how to contact him.  
> Finally, Dave notices a blinking red light up in the sky, though whatever it might be on top of is obscured. Hoping that this is a sign of civilization, they decide to head toward the light.
> 
> Elsewhere, Avery sits in the broadcasting booth, forbidden by Kevin from leaving. It's suggested that they've been there since the broadcast, and more time has passed than it initially seems has. Probably a Time Is Weird type of thing. Infected from the half-smile carved on their face, they have sat in delirious isolation ever since, as the blood and gore in the room has either dried or begun to rot.  
> Someone enters, then leaves quickly, from the smell. When she returns, wearing a ventilation mask, she approaches Avery and asks if they're alright. They don''t entirely seem aware of what's going on, but manage to have a short conversation in which claims to have come to fix the equipment, then says she'll help them out. When they say they can't leave, she promises to come back and help clean them up.  
> Outside of the booth, Rachelle takes off her mask, because it would be a shame for Kevin to know she can't handle the stench. She just wants to make him proud, after all.
> 
>  
> 
> anyway, I hope you guys enjoy! thanks as always for comments/kudos, and I hope my plans are starting to look neat ;)


	23. Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil admits a little more of what he knows, and what he knows is coming. Somewhere else, Rachelle tries to make good on her promise to clean Avery up, which doesn't go exactly according to plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, every chapter has warnings now doesn't it?
> 
> First section: no real warnings to speak of. Carlos' phone bleeds for a couple of lines, but that's just typical Night Vale weirdness.
> 
> Second section: graphic depictions of blood and gore, nasty descriptions of infection, and some good old fashioned eye horror. nightmare section ahoy. also, misgendering. poor Avery.
> 
> synopsis will follow for second section, since the first doesn't really have warnings.

"Hey, Cecil? Has your phone ever done this before?"

Carlos held up the device, which had cracked and was dripping blood from the face of it like a wounded entity. Somehow, it all just seemed pretty routine by now.

They'd made it back out to the kitchen, cleaned, even Cecil's bandages replaced, and he looked up from cleaning the spilled coffee on the floor to see Carlos holding the phone between his thumb and forefinger, trying to keep from touching it anymore than necessary.

"Probably an unknown number," he remarked casually. "Of course, all numbers are unknown, once. Everything is unknown, at some point in our lives..." he trailed off, expression going blank for only a moment before he reeled himself back in. "It's probably a telemarketer."

"Okay, but how do I make it stop bleeding?" Carlos asked, setting the phone back down on the counter. "I can't put that in my pocket like that. I would stain my lab coat."

Cecil shrugged. "Wait. All wounds take time to heal."

At that remark, even Carlos lapsed into silence, convinced sometimes that Cecil's attempts to wax philosophical could border on cries for help. Or something. Anyway, it left a bad taste in his mouth coming up with some joke to respond to a comment like that, so he let Cecil finish cleaning the coffee mess quietly.

His phone sat on the counter, bleeding away. It wasn't the first time the screen had cracked, and he figured it would fix itself again. Phones were weird.

A lot of things were weird. The newspaper that he'd gathered early in the morning was now no longer bragging about sports teams or concerned about governmental debates.

Stretched across the top of the first page, the headline was simple: "All Hail: The Glowing Cloud in the Sky." He'd read a bit of the article, and Cecil had even agreed that it was trash. Terrible, mediocre journalism at best.

(Cecil seemed opposed to print media, though he couldn't imagine why. A cute little article in the community news page mused, and he'd read it earlier, "A new voice for our tiny town? Listeners have expressed excitement at new segment on local radio station, saying it's 'unlike anything they've ever experienced'. We reached out to local radio professional, Mx. Mitchell, for comment on the new addition to their show...")

"Do you think Kevin was serious when he said he...you know," Carlos murmured, refusing to look too directly at Cecil, for when he heard the answer.

Cecil hesitated but replied, "I wouldn't put it past him to kill anyone, Carlos. Or everyone. I'm... sorry."

("He just came in, honestly, and started broadcasting. I thought, this is weird, you know? This guy has some idea what he's talking about, and I got so many positive calls about his segment. It's not official, but I'm hoping he'll come back...")

Carlos nodded down at his bloody phone. "I wish we'd... I wish I could've been there. I don't know what I could have done but..." he trailed off, biting his lip. Sure, he could call the other professors nothing more than coworkers, but that would be a disservice.

Over the years he'd worked at the University, they'd been his friends, maybe Dr. Sylvia Kayali most of all, who hired him when it wasn't at all popular to do so. He'd been terrified that he would never make it anywhere, once he changed his name.

The University had given him a chance.

("No, I don't think anyone knows entirely what's going on here. Anything could happen, right? I've been getting all these reports about—this is so weird—wheat products? Bread. It just turns into snakes. It's not _safe_ , it's hard to know what's safe anymore.")

Cecil walked over and pulled him into a hug, tucking Carlos' head under his chin. "It's not your fault what happened, Carlos. I mean. If you think about it. I could've helped, too, and yet I couldn't, right? I didn't."

He sniffled and buried his face into Cecil's shirt, muttering miserably, "There's got to be...something to do. Some way to...help."

"I don't know, Carlos. I've been trying--I've been trying, for so long. So very long."

Carlos pulled back, looked up at him. Cecil tried to smile, it faltered.

("The Void situation is pretty frightening, I'll admit. You don't really know what's in there, it could be anything, right? There could be anything in there...")

"Well, but, have you ever had _science_ help you out?" Carlos tried to crack a joke, as though science alone could instantly solve something that who _knows_ how many years had been spent trying to solve. What he got instead was the most miserable, heartbroken look on Cecil's face as he tried to respond.

"Carlos, I--" he began, only to stop himself.

He frowned. "Cecil, I'm sorry. We don't have to talk about it."

("I wouldn't know what to tell citizens for the most part. That's not my job really. I'm no crisis counselor. I don't know what's going on...")

Cecil shook his head, and took a deep breath before he answered, "But we should, Carlos. We...need to. Need to talk about it, because you need to understand. And maybe you can't understand everything. Nobody ever understands everything. So rarely do we really understand _anything_ , but...you need to understand this. And I don't want to...ramble all the time, and cover it up."

"Of course, Cecil. Just say what you need to, I'm listening," he reassured.

Cecil led him out to the living room to sit down, and crouched across from him, taking hold of the scientist's hands tightly. And then he hesitated, and he considered, and it seemed momentarily as if he'd completely lost his nerve.

Carlos squeezed his hands, and the confidence came flooding back.

“This... this is dangerous, Carlos. It's going to be dangerous,” he explained. “It always has been. I don't know...how long exactly we've been doing this, and I still don't understand everything about it, but...” he trailed off.

("Maybe the takeaway from all this is pretty simple. I'm clueless, you're clueless, we're pretty much all of us clueless. What I do know for sure is this: trust Cecil. If you trust nobody else, trust Cecil Palmer.")

“I didn't think it wouldn't be dangerous,” Carlos admitted. “I mean, buildings vanishing? Giant glowing clouds—all hail—I mean, the Void? And Station Management? And something happened to Mx. Mitchell's interns, and... I don't see how I could think that anything is safe anymore, Cecil.” He smiled down at the radio host. “I figured I should just start accepting it, because things are changing, aren't they?”

Cecil winced at his final remark and nodded slowly. “Yes, they're—yes. Things are changing, Carlos. And they're going to continue to change. This town needs to prepare itself for everything but—...I don't know, anymore.” He deflated, leaning into Carlos' lap with a sigh. “I don't think all the...secret police forces and bans and emergency press conferences in the world are going to fix this—they've never fixed anything before, not for real.”

He frowned at Cecil's defeat, and freed one of his hands so he could smooth back his lover's hair. “What about your old town though, Night Vale? Wasn't it like this there, too? I mean, it couldn't have been that bad.”

“No,” he admitted, “But it never got any better, either. And it won't.”

Carlos watched him in silence, a quiet that prompted Cecil to continue speaking. “I don't...understand the exact thing, the real _mechanism_ doing any of this. I mean, I know that it happens. I know _what_ is happening, it's been happening for—” here, he paused as if trying to think of the time frame. “...for as long as I can remember, really.”

“I don't know why it keeps happening,” he concluded. “Neither of us do.”

A brief pause followed, as Carlos waited for him to elaborate, only he didn't. “Neither of...? Do you mean you and me? Or—no, you mean you and...someone else, don't you?”

“Myself and Kevin,” he admitted.

Carlos grimaced. “Him?”

Cecil nodded, “He's a part of this, as much as I am. Everything has its opposite, doesn't it? Black has white, night has day, and somewhere far from the desert, people are wearing winter coats, but I've never seen that for myself.”

“So he's what, evil and you're good?” Carlos asked, expecting confirmation.

Instead, Cecil seemed to falter. “It's not so simple, sweet Carlos. Nothing is ever so simple. True enough, Kevin is Kevin, and I am I, but who are we, really? Who is _anyone_ really... to judge the goods and the evils, I mean. In truth, it could have gone any other way. I could have been Kevin; he could have been me.”

After a moment of staring at Cecil, Carlos let out a quiet, “What.”

“Oh, no, not literally,” Cecil reassured. “I mean, I'm _me_ and he's _him,_ I'm not him and he's certainly not me, just like you and I are distinct, different people. Two people cannot be the same person, cannot inhabit the same space and think the same thoughts, but had things gone differently... maybe he would be here. Maybe I would be there.”

Carlos watched him, brows furrowed in confusion. “I... don't know what you mean.”

“The Smiling God could have chosen either of us,” he admitted. “It just thought that Desert Bluffs would be easier.”

“I still don't...know who the Smiling God is. It's a person, right? Or is this like the Void?”

“No,” Cecil replied quickly. “No, no, _no_. The Void is _nothing_ like that, Carlos. _Nothing_ at all like that. Don't even _compare_ it to the Smiling God. Never, Carlos.”

Taken aback by Cecil's sudden sternness, Carlos was quick to apologize. “Sorry, I didn't know. What's... what is the Smiling God, then? If it's not like the Void or anything.”

Still worked up, Cecil answered, “It's _horrible_ , Carlos. The Smiling God is the end, the great unraveling, it's light—endless, horrible light that devours _everything_. It's pervasive, Carlos, and vicious, and unforgiving. And I've been running from it, all this time.”

Carlos was silent, unsure of what to say, and for a while Cecil stayed quiet as well. There wasn't much else _to_ say. But Carlos finally came up with a question: “What if it catches up?”

He grimaced, and replied solemnly, “Then it's looking for new believers, and I'm... pretty sure it's ready to move on. Kevin was really just a trial run.”

Almost afraid to ask, Carlos asked nonetheless, “Trial run of what...?”

“The Smiling God needs a vessel that people believe in.”

* * *

 

As hot and endless as the desert was, it was almost certainly better to die in the sands than live in the University. At least, that was the refrain in Avery's head as the masked woman scrubbed roughly at their infected cheek with a washcloth.

They gritted their teeth against the pain, vaguely aware that they'd agreed to this, but the thought slipped away quick as it came. Like any thought, scattering and vanishing away into the fevered haze they thought they'd just slip into for the rest of their life.

Shots of pain from the scrubbing of their face kept them conscious enough of what was going on, but they made no attempt to pull away or tell the woman to stop.

Whoever she was, she'd offered help. Nobody else had done that.

“Going to make sure you're good and clean and _presentable_ ,” she was muttering, more to herself than to them. “Maybe a new outfit, there are still plenty of costumes left in the theater department. Something more befitting of a young lady.”

The word shot through like a bullet, and for a moment they strained to focus a glare on the woman, before fading back out into the haze again. _Lady_. They couldn't yell at her, couldn't even find their voice, but they'd have loved to spit the word in her face.

Then they weren't thinking anything. She continued to chatter away about cleaning them up, dressing them up, working on their productivity for the company. After all, they'd just been sitting in a _room_ for who knows how long—days? A week? More? It was _so_ hard, with time being so weird, to tell. The best way to combat the uncertainty was, of course, to just never stop working in the first place.

And they had been quiet for too long.

(Not that Kevin hadn't, but Rachelle wouldn't _dare_ point out his radio silence. He was busy, he was recruiting, showing people the light, it was _more_ important than radio.)

“Maybe when you're feeling better, you could even have a nice, important part on the show. I mean, nobody said Kevin _has_ to do the whole show—there are probably _way_ more important things to do.” She hesitated. “I mean, he knows what's best for the company, so that's... that's definitely important! But. I still think constructive criticism is important.”

Avery offered no response, but they made a good captive audience. Literally captive. They would be killed if they so much as left the room.

“You would make a good radio host, if he wanted to...you know, move on to something _else_ after a while. That one professor you used to work for—what was his name?” She considered for a moment, but came up blank. “Anyway, he always said such things about you.”

Once she'd finished scrubbing their face, she examined her handiwork. Avery could see nothing of the damage that had been done, the raw and even bloodier skin, though she'd cleaned out any pus and the crust of infection that had formed over the days they'd sat in solitary confinement. It was necessary so the wound could heal, right? Remove the infection.

“Now, that looks so much better, sweetheart. But I do know that he wants _nothing_ done halfway.” She poked at their unmarred cheek, as if testing it. “I suppose leaving the deed unfinished won't do anyone any good, right? You look terrible like this.”

Rachelle rose to her feet a moment to scour the room for sharp objects, satisfied when she produced a letter opener from the pile of junk on the desk. It was mostly sharp, mostly. And mostly clean. She tried to wipe the dried blood off on her dress, but it only mostly came off.

Good enough. She crouched over Avery again, tilting their chin up with one hand, while the other pressed the blade of the letter opener against their cheek.

It was a little more blunt than anticipated, and by the time she was pressing hard enough to draw blood, Avery had returned momentarily to their senses, enough to look straight up at her with horror for what she was doing.

What they were already never going to recover from on the other side. They didn't need another bleeding face wound to die from. Rachelle started to drag the letter opener up, and they panicked and shoved her away as hard as their shaky arms could muster.

She slid, slammed forward, and in the same movement, the tip of the letter opener rammed into the corner of their eye and went deep. Everything snapped into focus; Avery couldn't even scream, but reached up to jerk the bloody weapon out while Rachelle tried to regain her bearings and figure out why there was _so_ much more fresh blood than a moment ago.

When she looked up, Avery was looking down at her with one eye still good, hand over the other side of their face, and a wild look like she'd not seen in any student before as they wordlessly pointed the letter opener at her to try to force her to back away.

“You shouldn't have pulled that out,” she insisted, moving back. “You're going to bleed to death, that may have severed an important—”

“Sh-shut up!” they shrieked, as loud as their raw voice could go. Avery considered the woman before them for only a moment before deciding that they _weren't_ going to stoop to her level—instead, they turned tail and ran.

If they were dead, if they were dying, if they were going to die—it would be on their own fucking terms. The halls were a bloody mess, jittering in an unsteady focus as they forced weakened legs to run as fast as they could.

Rachelle ran after on a stunned delay, expecting _anything_ but for the intern to suddenly flee. And she could run faster, she wasn't starved, she wasn't feverish from infection, and she'd have caught Avery easily.

Except turning a corner, they ran into Kevin hard enough to bowl him over. Rachelle slid to a stop on the slick, bloody linoleum floor.

“Kevin I—” she began.

His response was faster than she'd anticipated; in only moments he'd noted the scene as it was and let loose with a horrendous yell, “What the _fuck_ did you do to my intern?!”

Stunned, Rachelle said nothing.

He wasn't smiling as he rose to his feet, tugging Avery roughly to theirs again as well. And they didn't release Avery's wrist, but advanced on Rachelle with a rage she'd hoped to never see. “You _inept_ fucking _useless_ goddamn—who _told_ you to start mutilating my intern? They need those eyes to read copy _, do you even know how to listen to fucking company orders?_ ”

Rachelle tried to swallow the lump forming in her throat. “Kevin I—I was cleaning her up. Look! I cleaned up her cheek and—”

“And you gored out their eye!” Kevin snapped, and the way he spat out the words, it sounded _personal_. Kevin reached up to wipe at the inky blood ever dripping from his own empty eyes, as if to illustrate a point: he knew damn well what it was like. The scowl on his face fought against the smile carved into his cheeks; even smiling forever, he still looked wicked and furiously angry, baring his teeth as he scolded her.

She stumbled back as he came forward, “It was an accident—she attacked me, I slid, I—” but she went silent as he backed her up against the wall, still gripping Avery's wrist in one hand, though the intern was beginning to visibly sink where they stood, legs struggling to keep holding them up at this point.

Kevin hissed in her face, “You are by far the _worst_ employee I have ever had. I'm so _fucking_ sick of you—I'm so fucking sick of _all_ of you. And your stupid. Fucking. Eager to please. Goddamn. Fucking sick of it!” He pressed himself up against her, and she could smell blood on his breath, so close. “Listen to the orders you're given. Do what you're fucking told. And stop trying to _impress_ me. Stop trying to do things you _can't_.”

“I-I'm sorry,” she whimpered, eyes shut. “I only wanted to—”

“I know you _only wanted to_ ,” he whispered in her ear. “Now, I only want to tear out every one of your fucking hearts, eat them, and burn this University down. Sometimes it isn't about what you fucking _want_ , it's about what you need to do.”

Rachelle nodded, hoping her agreement would spare her.

Instead, it was Avery's collapse that finally distracted Kevin from his stream of curses and frustration. The intern fell to their knees, and Kevin felt the jerk at his hand as Avery fell.

He looked down at the intern, and then at Rachelle again, before pulling away from her to instead tend to _more important_ things.

With surprising care, he scooped the small intern into his arms, and through gritted teeth he commanded Rachelle, “Go freshen up the broadcasting booth. I'll be making an announcement later today.”

Still shaken, but increasingly realizing she wasn't about to die, Rachelle nodded with enthusiasm and a few quick yes-sirs and of-courses, before running off.

Kevin angrily carried Avery off to his office—Carlos' office, really—and laid the intern out on his desk, considering the mess before him.

It was _always_ the eye. Nothing bothered him worse than watching someone have their eyes gored out. Nothing bothered him even half as much. She'd scrubbed half the skin off their face, or damn near, and began a second cut up their other cheek, but it was the eye that he couldn't stand to look at.

In the top drawer, he found a Swiss army knife, and thoughtfully flipped it open to the longest blade, testing the point with his fingertip.

It was sharp enough for anything he'd need it for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Synopsis:
> 
> After we cutscene from Cecil and Carlos, we join our hero Avery...still in the broadcasting booth. Rachelle is scrubbing their face, trying to clean away the infection from the earlier cut in their cheek. She tells them how she's going to clean them up and make them presentable for Kevin. Avery is clearly delirious, and just allows Rachelle to scrub as hard as she wants, which ends up making the wound worse, though she scrubs out any nasty infected bits at least.  
> While she's cleaning them up, she muses about Avery becoming the full-time radio host, so that Kevin can do other, more productive and important things, which she feels he should be able to do. She doesn't really specify what exactly she thinks he should be doing, just that there's something probably more important than radio. Rachelle repeatedly misgenders Avery as female, while she talks about trying to dress them up like a proper young lady. It isn't clear whether she knows how they identify, in her own altered state, or if she misgenders maliciously.  
> Once finished cleaning his wounded cheek, Rachelle locates a letter opener to attempt to cut the other cheek. During this, Avery returns to their senses and tries to shove her away; she slips and loses her balance, and in the fall, rams the letter opener into Avery's eye.  
> Now brought back to their senses by the pain, Avery pulls the letter opener out, and threatens Rachelle with it before deciding that they can't actually bring themselves to hurt her. Instead, they flee from the room, even though they know they'll be killed by Kevin if they're caught.  
> Rachelle pursues, trying to capture them again, before they end up quit literally slamming into Kevin and bowling him over in the hallway. He realizes what Rachelle has done to the intern, and finally completely loses his cool. There's no smiling, sarcastic Kevin here--he's screaming at her, cursing, and accusing her of being a horrible worker for not listening to orders, as it's clear that she wasn't supposed to be trying to clean up Avery, and now she's gone and damaged them.  
> He corners Rachelle, and seems about ready to kill her, but when Avery--whose wrist he's still holding onto--finally passes out, Kevin is distracted enough to let Rachelle get away unharmed. He tells her to freshen up the broadcasting booth, and carries Avery away to his office (previously Carlos' office), where he lays the intern on his desk.  
> Kevin reveals a very personal disturbance about people having their eyes removed or damaged, referring to how he, himself, has had his own eyes destroyed. He doesn't seem bothered by all the blood and gore, but Avery's eye injury bothers him, clearly.  
> He pulls out a swiss army knife from the top drawer of his desk, pleased that the longest blade will be sharp enough for whatever he could need it for, although his plans aren't revealed.
> 
>  
> 
> wow, shit, I'd be caught red-handed humanizing Kevin, here.  
> I'd also be caught questioning why I can never post a chapter without a synopsis anymore, but I figure hey, it makes it more accessible to people who may want to read the nice scenes and understand the rest of the story without having to read the nasty bits.
> 
> anyway, as always thank you to anyone who comments/leaves kudos! you're awesome, and really, I love hearing from all of you, don't be shyyy!


	24. Communications

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Kayali's group makes contact with the other residents of the desert. Elsewhere, Cecil broadcasts his first official radio segment. At least, he tries to do so uninterrupted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No...warnings...in this chapter?? Wow.

The camp, when it first became apparent, didn't look nearly as far away as it was. There were tents clustered at the base of a bare mountain, and with enough clearing of the air, these came into focus. It was the mountain that had led them toward it; the blinking light atop it remained active.

There was somebody settled below it. Presumably a large number of somebodies.

Dave took off running ahead of the group, near-cackling as relief flooded him, they couldn't have been more than a mile away, tops. If there was civilization, there was probably water, _shade_. Rest. He could run the rest of the way.

“Well, glad he's finally feeling enthusiastic again,” Theo remarked to the leader of the group. Dr. Kayali just laughed; she didn't have the energy to be cynical. Everyone was glad.

Long silent in their march, the students began to come back to life, chattering to each other as the first pointed out the tents, and the others began to notice.

Excited comments arose from behind the professors; there might be _food_ there. Relief from the scorching, everpresent sun. Oh, it was going to be _wonderful_.

“So, what do we do when we get there?” the psychology professor questioned.

Dr. Kayali shrugged. “I don't know. We hope they speak our language—we hope they don't mean us any harm. We have to try, though, don't we?” She kept her voice quiet enough so the students wouldn't hear her doubt. It was really her responsibility, along with the other professors, to make sure this went as well as possible.

Sometimes, when things were already too far gone to turn back around, that meant keeping the flame of hope alive as long as possible.

“What about that _freak_ on campus? He may very well have come from here.”

She sighed, “Well, then we hope he was an outcast for a reason.”

For a little longer, they continued forward in silence, until they came upon Dave on his knees in the sand, trying to catch his breath. Dr. Kayali goaded him for feeling the need to run ahead when he couldn't keep up the pace, and tried to help him to his feet.

Panting, he replied to her remarks, “Look. Sh-shouldn't it be close...by now?”

The group stalled by Dave, to stare ahead at the strangeness of the camp they were approaching, which true enough, should have been close by now. Should have been within _yards_ by now, by the size of it.

Still, the desert seemed to stretch endlessly between them and their destination.

Theo broke the silence, “My god. It's _enormous_.”

“I'm almost certain that Kevin _didn't_ come from there,” Dr. Kayali concluded. By the sheer size, and a distance they couldn't accurately determine with nothing between the two places but sand, it was possible those tents could have been skyscrapers.

Which, sincerely, she hoped they were not. Because there was still no other option than to go forward; they'd run through their supply of water and wouldn't even be able to make it back to the University alive if they tried.

Again, the students had lapsed into near-silence. A few stray remarks rose up from the cluster, how it was probably a mirage. They were all hallucinating, they were going to _die_.

Dr. Kayali spun to face them all. “Listen. We aren't dying.”

A young woman stepped forward, “We're out of water, professor. We're all sunburnt, we're lost—”

Elsewhere in the group of students, another voice piped up, “Even if that's real they're probably giants that want to grind our bones to make their bread!”

“That's fairytale shit,” Dave corrected. “Nobody grinds bones to make bread here. I'm sure they'd just tear our hearts out and decorate their tents.”

“Dave! What the hell!” Dr. Kayali snapped at him.

The student from before asked, “We're gonna die aren't we?”

This sent a chorus of similar responses through the students; “We're gonna die.” “We're fucked.” “I never said I love you before I left!” “Oh god, oh god.” “Everyone's dead.”

“Hey—hey—” Theo tried to get the students' attention.

It was Dr. Kayali, who let out a yell to break over the din, that finally silenced the whole lot of them. “You all need to SHUT UP! Nobody's dying! Nobody's dead! We're going to settle this like mature adults, yes I know, it's a bad situation—but we're going to make it _through_ , and we need to stop _panicking_ at every turn because—”

One of the students screamed, and when the others noticed the figure nearing them, everyone scattered; and it was, indeed, every man for himself. Even the other professors ran.

Dr. Kayali turned slowly, looking up at the towering figure that stood easily as tall as a house, now only a few yards away from her. The entity loomed, a strange blackened silhouette draped in clothing that should have been silhouetted too, but wasn't; it was all shades of whites and pale tans, desert clothing.

It crouched down by Dr. Kayali, who stood frozen to the spot as she was now face-to-mask with something large enough to really, truly grind her bones to make its bread. The mask, nostalgic of some long-forgotten desert mammal, stared down at her with blank black eyes.

Words came out from where a mouth must have hidden behind the mask, only not a lick of it made sense, and the resonance hurt her ears. She tried to block out the noise, and took a few steps back, but the realization had dawned by now: if she even wanted to run, it would be far too late already.

"Wh-who are you?" she asked the figure, with as much certainty as she could muster.

A long silence followed, but before she thought to try a second language, it rose up on its feet again, looming overhead, massive. The figure reached into the loose layers of fabric draping over its body, and pulled forth a weapon, a sword--she stumbled back at the sight of the blade, only to slip in the sand.

"Please don't, please don't, god, please don't," she pleaded, covering her head with her hands, cowering as it reached over her, missing her with the blade entirely, to write a response into the sand. She watched the sword pull away from her again, and realized, after a moment, that she wasn't going to die.

It wasn't the neatest of handwriting, but she turned to look at the four-letter word sloppily written into the sand. It read: Doug.

Dr. Kayali read over it a few times before she tested the word on her tongue. "Doug? Is--is that your name? Doug?" She looked away from the words in the sand and back up at the figure, who nodded.

Well, go figure. His name was apparently Doug.

“My name is Sylvia,” she replied, careful to enunciate, she wasn't sure how well he understood, even though he did seem to understand. Doug nodded a second time, then gestured at the scattered group, a broad sweeping gesture.

(Some of them had made some considerable distance; others, like Dave, lay collapsed into the sand only a few yards away and trying to catch their breath.)

She looked out where he was gesturing, and then back up at Doug, attempting to focus on his mask as though it were a proper face. “They're students—well, most of them are. Dave and...what's-their-name are both professors. As am I. We teach at the uh... we teach at the University of...”

Dr. Kayali trailed off with some horror as she realized that, somehow, after the years she'd worked there, she'd forgotten the name of the University altogether.

As Doug pulled his sword from its sheath a second time to write his response, she didn't shy away in fear, but watched him writing. It was slow and sloppy, but suited her better than the voice she'd heard for a moment; at least this way it didn't hurt to hold a conversation.

[Why are you here?] was his question of choice.

She hesitated, considered any number of lies, and settled on the truth. “We're running. Someone...some... _thing_ came to our University—started...killing students, mutilating people. I...we...none of us realized how vast the desert was. We thought we'd find help, somewhere, but we're just lost.” She watched him carefully as she spoke, but he betrayed no reaction.

Doug crouched down, reaching a hand toward her, and despite herself she flinched. Still, she tried to keep her feet firmly planted, tried not to act nervous as he carefully prodded at her wounded cheek with one enormous finger.

It took her a moment to realize what he was attempting to communicate. “Oh—yes. Yes, that's—he's been cutting people's cheeks into... _smiles_ , he's calling it.” She shuddered.

The masked giant wrote in the sand with his sword, [Kevin.]

Dr. Kayali had to read the word a couple of times before she could clear the shock of it. “Yes. Kevin—that's exactly what he called himself. You've run into him before?”

He nodded. By this time, some of the others who hadn't gotten as far began to double back, realizing that their leader stood in front of the giant man, unharmed. And, it seemed, having a conversation with him.

Doug was writing his next response into the sand when Dave stumbled back over, still somewhat short of breath. “What's...what's going on, Sylvia?”

She shushed him and pointed to the letters in the sand, written after his earlier statement as an elaboration. [Kevin is dangerous.]

Dave replied with energy, “He is! He fucking—brainwashed Rachelle—he's been killing students—it's horrible!”

“I already told him as much,” Dr. Kayali sighed. “Dave, this is Doug. Doug, Dave.” She gestured to each in turn as she introduced them to each other. “Doug was saying he knew who Kevin is, I guess he's probably just—” she was hushed by Doug holding up a hand for silence as he began writing again.

(It was the only way he could successfully interrupt the conversation without causing anyone any pain from trying to speak.)

His words in the sand took a few rereads, a bit sloppy. [Come with us and stay safe.]

Dr. Kayali looked back toward the scattered group, as it began to regroup. Dave leaned in and asked her, in a whisper, what was going to happen; whether they'd go with.

“...I think we can probably do that,” she agreed.

* * *

_"We all have dreams at night. We all have the same dream at night. There are so many of us. It has gotten very crowded. Hello, listeners._

_Yes, it's me, I'm back again. At the request of the talented Mx. Mitchell, and enthusiastic fans such as yourselves, I've been given a regular segment at the radio station. I would just like to thank Station Management and Mx. Mitchell for their generosity, allowing me to come back again._

_As you may well imagine, it can be difficult finding a role to play in community radio with such a wonderful radio host already providing important journalism for the community._

_For those who don't know me by my voice, which will soon be all that you need to know me by, my name is Cecil Palmer. I've been working in radio for... well, a_ pretty _long time, honestly! They called me the Voice of Night Vale, back in my tiny hometown, but I hope that my voice can be_ your _voice as well. The voice of your tiny desert community, as well._

 _Wow--that was pretty sentimental, I mean, right? Let's get some real news out of the way, no more of that_ emotional _stuff, wow._

_A few days ago, reports began spilling in at the community radio station about strange happenings with wheat and wheat by-products. Many of you said you weren't sure what to do to protect yourselves from the new dangers associated with eating said wheat and said by-products._

_Normally, this would call for a ban, but I've been informed that there's no Sheriff's Secret Police here? Huh. I don't know how you guys do it... no Secret Police._

_Well, anyway. Since we can't get the cogs of police force involved in this predicament, I think it's best to just exercise caution, right? If it looks like bread, and smells like bread, and tastes like bread, it's probably still snakes, unless it's been made with one of the approved wheat substitutes. Which... Mx. Mitchell has said will be available for viewing on their Tumblr blog. Wow. So that's neat._

_In the meantime, before we can have any planned city-wide sweep of dangerous products, you should probably try to stay away from them, and just like, eat a salad or something, you know? I mean, just for now, so it's no big deal._

_Now let's go to the seven day outlook:_

_Monday afternoon, we should expect a resurgence of falling livestock. All hail the Glow Cloud. Don't forget to stay indoors, or if you must go outside, stay under an awning at all times._

_On Tuesday, don't look into the sky. This has nothing to do with livestock. Just don't look._

_Wednesday will be punctuated with loud, anguished screams, and paranoid laughter, as we all attempt to pretend that nothing has changed. Unfortunately, everything has changed. Is changing. Even our minds and fleshy bodies will change more with each passing day. Some call it getting older. We will get older, each day, and yet we are fundamentally the same._

_At least, we've convinced ourselves that we're the same._

_If you have finished screaming, Thursday will be a pleasant day. Not too sunny, not too overcast. Good for cleaning the gutters, or walking the dog, or avoiding the constant looming fear of nonexistence by embracing the now._

_Friday, there will be a PTA meeting. That's... that's all. A PTA meeting. I wasn't given...anything else to report on that._

_Saturday and Sunday, expect rain._

_That's it for our seven day outlook._

_And--oh--listeners, Carlos--that's my boyfriend--is waving his hands at me. He's pointing at his phone. He's... I think he's trying to tell me something, maybe I should let him into the booth._

_..._

_Well, I think we're getting a call from the desert otherworld. I... don't know this number, listeners, and neither does he. So, we're going to take the call, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with the[weather](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e262k42UWO0)."_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poor Cecil just can't get through a show without interruption. maybe it's all part of some plot or something. like, a narrative plot, almost.
> 
> anyway, it's exciting starting to mix up my narration a bit more! I anticipate that there'll be more shows from Cecil and Kevin both, at some point...so there'll be more of that style.  
> and maybe some additional weather, hopefully a good forecast.
> 
> as always, thanks for reading/kudos, and your comments are my lifeblood. seriously.  
> my lifeblood.  
> thanks!


	25. The New and Improved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Avery wakes back up, but something has changed. Elsewhere, Cecil reflects on what might have been poor life choices, until Carlos received a voice mail that distracts them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for first section: Blood, implied eye trauma (thankfully occurring off-screen this time), some gore
> 
> Second section: cute and fluffy innocence, carry on.

 “Blink once if you're awake. Blink twice if you understand me.”

The words came drifting into consciousness before anything else came back into focus. Avery kept their eyes shut, because the idea of opening them was impossible and, oh god, why did their left eye hurt so badly?

A sigh. The creak of an office chair as their companion in the otherwise quiet room leaned back, receiving no response. The feeling of rough fabric pulling away from the bloody left side of their face. A cold, damp rag replacing the previous warm, crusty one.

Kevin leaned further back in his chair, or at least it sounded like it. “You're going to have to wake up sooner or later, you know. I've had to do announcements without you. I've been doing your work for you. That's not how a good intern behaves.”

Whatever part of their mind had slowly turned back on, it was enough of them to know that answering Kevin's demands for awareness wasn't going to be a good idea.

“I'm done giving you sympathy, if you won't work,” he remarked. “I have another intern lined up, in fact, I have several interns who would be very happy to take your place. You could be the decorator, instead. Or the decoration.”

(Avery only half-listened. There was something wrong, something they could barely remember. Their left eye felt like it was burning, although their cheek felt slightly better.)

He waited a while. “You know, I know you're awake.”

The chair creaked as Kevin rose from it, and Avery tensed in anticipation of whatever he was going to do. Hot, wet fingers touched their face; Kevin pried their good eye open. Their vision slowly focused on the face of the man leaned over them, his pale hair chopped shorter than it had seemed before. It was hard to see anything clearly; the room was pitch black. There had never been a window in Carlos' office, and now they both sat in it with the lights turned off.

And there was something strangely gentle in the touch of that violent man, almost apologetic until he pulled away and sat back in his seat.

“Don't deceive me, intern. Sit up,” he demanded. “It's time to get back to work.”

Avery didn't sit up; they weren't wholly sure that they could, but what they did attempt to do was take in their surroundings. It was definitely Carlos' office. It had definitely been redecorated, in the same morbid way that Kevin had been redecorating any room he'd taken up residence in, but the blood seemed dry and at least a few days old.

The thing they'd been laid out on was Carlos' desk. Everything was off of it, and much of the contents that he'd covered his desk in were all over the floor, instead. Much of it was blood-soaked and otherwise ruined.

Kevin sat in the comfortable chair that Carlos had always occupied, seeming somehow both too big and too small for the furniture at once. He held himself with the confidence of a man who was used to being listened to. His limbs were thin and bony after endless wandering in the desert, and his skin was as sun-darkened as his hair was sun-bleached.

And he was watching Avery. Watching quite intently, with two blackened eyes, most of the blood cleaned away but more beginning to seep down.

They realized slowly that one of his eyes was missing—but only one. Because the other wasn't . It wasn't missing, it wasn't an empty bleeding socket.

It was an aperture. His eyes were robotic. Artificial. And one of them was missing.

Kevin watched as they pieced the scene together, their good eye following his features, examining the blood-clouded eye attempting to focus on them, and traced his gaze toward the blood on the desk, which wasn't all red, but much of it was ink black.

Wherever Avery's eye had gone, it simply was gone altogether, but they saw the knife and the blood and drew conclusions like the scientist they wanted to say they could be.

Carefully, Avery opened their left eye, and it was like night and day.

Even adjusted to the darkness, the real eye they had left saw none of the burning, endless light that the robotic eye let in. The room moved in jerks of unsteady motion, halos of light shimmering around anything even slightly lighter than the surroundings. The crack of light sneaking in beneath the door was an inferno bright as the sun.

“Ow, fuck , what the hell?”

Before they realized fully who they were talking to, they'd opened their fucking mouth. Avery snapped their left eye shut again, massaging the sore eyelid with the palm of their hand, but didn't dare open it to that bright fucking light again.

Kevin's expression hardened, slightly. “Don't you appreciate my gift, intern Avery? I think it's an upgrade, in fact, I know it's an upgrade. That was how they upgraded me .”

They let their vision refocus, with only their one good eye open to watch Kevin for some hint at what he was thinking, some betrayal of emotion. The realization almost didn't come, at first: he wasn't smiling at them.

He wasn't smiling at all, and the upward motion of the healing gashes on his cheeks contrasted with the flatness of his expression as he surveyed Avery and waited for the proper answer, which Avery hoped was going to be an easy answer to give.

“Um, thanks?” they tried on for size.

It didn't look like the reaction Kevin had been hoping for.

“Why did you give me... your eye?” they tried next.

Kevin shrugged. “I'm ready for the next upgrade, anyway, and once we've got Strex up and running again, it should take no time.” His smile came back so quickly that the switch could've given his face whiplash, were that possible. “But I'm always happy to do whatever I can to help valued employees keep their full productive potential, this isn't about me , Avery. You know? This isn't about me at all.”

“Then...what?” they asked.

“Why, it's about all of you , I'm so glad you should ask. My wonderful workers, or well, you will all be my wonderful workers.” He sighed, but it still sounded pleasant somehow. “Oh, Avery—I'm just going to call you Avery from now on, I think we can consider ourselves friends . But see, I'm going to tell you a secret, because we are friends: I don't know that everyone's taking this new opportunity as seriously as they should be.”

Avery watched him for a moment, cautioning a question, “What...do you think is supposed to be happening right now...Kevin?” They'd play the game, then.

Friends.

He replied, sadness etching into his features, “We're supposed to band together under the shining light of the Smiling God, Avery. Rise up and create a new Desert Bluffs, a new Strex, a new life for all of us. So we could be happy . So we could be... productive .”

They opened their mouth to reply, but perhaps anticipating a disagreeable response, Kevin interrupted before they'd even had the chance to speak. “You want to be happy , don't you Avery?”

“Well...yeah,” they murmured. “Don't we all?”

A wistful look crossed Kevin's face for a moment. “I believe we all do, Avery. Listen. I'm willing to forgive you for sleeping so long because I think you can make up for lost time easily. Your professor spoke quite highly of your achievements! A teaching aid? I think, perhaps, you may be better suited to helping teach than simply saying simple words to deaf ears.”

Unsure what would happen if they did, they didn't say a word.

“See, I've made a few announcements, but I think that your classmates want to listen to a real teacher,” he continued. “And a peer! People really value peers who they already have good rapport with. And I think that's exactly how you can fit into this company.”

Avery dared to ask for clarification only once it was clear that Kevin was done speaking. “What..do you mean?”

He smiled again. “Oh, it's simple. I want you to be the full-time radio host here, and oh, there will be so much radio. Everyone likes to listen to the radio! And don't worry. I'll still come and guest host some segments! They'll be special announcements. What do you say?”

Their good eye drifted down to the blood on their shirt, on the desk, on the floor. They lowered their hand from their newly replaced eye, but didn't open it.

Slowly, Avery nodded, hoping that was the right choice.

“Alright... I'll be the radio announcer.”

Kevin's face lit up with glee. “Oh, good! I'll teach you all about how it's done, I'm sure you're going to love your new position so much, Avery. I loved it so much when I started.”

They didn't want to ask if he still loved it now. For starters, it didn't matter.

Furthermore, they could guess the answer.

 

* * *

 

“In my defense, I did think it was an important call,” Carlos was trying to explain, though he couldn't fully stifle the silly smile threatening to creep up onto his features.

Cecil groaned and laid his face down on the break room desk. “Everyone hated it, Carlos. The—the forecast, the outlook—okay your phone call wasn't even the worst of it.” He let the table muffle his words. “Anita said she got so many calls she couldn't even answer them!”

“Well, how do you know they were all bad calls then?” Carlos challenged.

After Cecil had switched the station over to the weather, he'd run out to see Carlos so they could answer the phone. He wasn't going to let just anyone call in after nearly letting Kevin onto the show before. So any unlisted number would be answered outside.

It wasn't a call from the desert otherworld.

Carlos' neighbor, who he'd sworn was a pretty alright friend, had called him up to ask if he was listening to the crazy radio show. Said he'd seen Cecil and Carlos going home together, and he wanted to know if Carlos knew just how wacky that guy was.

He'd come to Cecil's defense, of course, but that was just the first of a number of calls, as the station began receiving them. Mx. Mitchell answered as many as they could.

There were a lot of complaints.

There was a lot of confusion.

Mx. Mitchell would have interrupted him, she would have told him that it wasn't working out, if he hadn't gone back to the booth by the time she wanted to speak with him. The least she could do was not embarrass him further by calling him out on-air.

So he'd continued with the rest of the broadcast, in typical Night Valian fashion, and anyone who listened in would no doubt wonder who the hell had approved his stories, unless they'd been seeing any of it themselves.

The University—or rather, where the University had been— he was calling it some euphemism for short; it became the Dog Park. Perfectly mundane, ordinary, just a dog park that nobody was allowed to enter. Especially not with dogs.

And the sky was a Void, and the Glow Cloud must be hailed, and Carlos—the sweet, lovely, brilliant scientist Carlos—he was going to investigate into getting everyone back from the desert otherworld, away from the grasp of his lunatic doppelganger who lived there and worshipped a Smiling God.

Carlos remembered reading Cecil's Little Reporter's Book before meeting him, and he could understand why everything sounded so fake, listening in. Nobody could ever vanish to other dimensions, clouds didn't look back at you, and there was no reason to fear librarians or wheat products, unless you were a loud student or allergic to wheat, respectively.

Nothing never happened, and nothing couldn't take people away, and Carlos realized that he'd begun to understand far more of where Cecil was coming from than he'd expected.

It made sense, when you realized it could really happen.

But for the people in town who hadn't seen—honestly, for many of them who had seen bizarre things happening, but refused to admit it—Cecil's words were nonsense.

Mx. Mitchell told him after the broadcast that he'd received a number of complaints, and maybe he needed to tone it down a little. “I mean, I know you're telling the truth, Cecil. We know you're telling the truth, here, at the station—but a lot of other people don't believe you and...maybe? You could try and bend the stories a little so they're more believable?”

Cecil had expressed his doubt; there was no sense in lying about the stories when he knew how they really went.

“Okay but. For example. Your seven day outlook. That's where the weather goes, I don't even know what you were doing there,” she admitted. “It sounded weird though.”

He defended himself, “That was the outlook. That's the next seven days.”

“Anguished screams? Don't look into the sky?” Her tone was incredulous.

Cecil sank under her stare. “It's... it's always good advice, Anita. We should never look into the sky. Never look into the sky, never eat wheat products, never—”

She interrupted him. “Look. I know that...this might be what you're used to from wherever you came from, but you need to just keep in mind, not everyone here knows or believes what you're talking about. So work with that. Make people believe you. Listen. I have to go pick up a segment. You two can just... have a snack or something in here, I don't know.”

And she'd left them in the break room, where they were now, with Cecil lamenting bad reviews and Carlos trying to comfort him. Honestly he wasn't sure how to comfort.

Just because he knew, and he understood, didn't mean that Mx. Mitchell didn't have a point in what she was saying. If Cecil had said half the things in that broadcast to Carlos when they'd first met, he would've tried to have Cecil locked away as mad.

(He didn't say that, though.)

“Look, just give it time, Cecil,” he insisted, leaning over his boyfriend to give him a hug. “People don't understand yet! They'll understand, and they'll believe you, because you said people listen when it's important, right?”

He nodded miserably, muttered a quiet, “I guess so.”

“So they'll listen when they have to. You'll make a great radio host here, as good as you were back in Night Vale.” He kissed Cecil's cheek. “I have faith in you.”

Slowly, Cecil dared to smile up at Carlos again.

“If you believe in me, then I guess I can do anything, Carlos.”

They smiled at each other for a moment, but before either could say a word, Carlos' phone blipped in his back pocket. He jumped from the sudden noise, then laughed, noticing that Cecil had startled all the same.

“Oh that's...that's just a voice mail, someone left me a voice mail.”

Cecil looked surprised. “That's a lot less bloody than any voice mail I've ever gotten.”

Ignoring the oddness of the comment, Carlos pulled the phone from his pocket. It had healed after the earlier bloody fiasco, and looked normal now as he opened his voice mail to listen, setting it on the table on speaker phone.

(Which as really only a safe bet if he was sure it was someone who wanted to talk to both of them, but with Cecil watching so intently, he just had to hope that it was someone who wanted both of their attention.)

The beginning of the voice mail was static and noise, as if he'd somehow been left a message by the high-pitched grate of a fax machine.

Gradually, the sound faded, and a familiar voice could be picked out, mid-sentence, perhaps unaware that her message had been corrupted in sending. It was Dr. Kayali.

“...know if you got any of my messages, but you haven't responded. We're safe here for a while. Dave is pretty badly dehydrated, I'm um—I'm fine. I don't know if you're busy with Cecil, or science, or whatever you're doing, but I just want you to know—we're alive so far. We're alive, we're fighting, please keep fighting for us. We're going to keep fighting for ourselves, just in case this never gets through, but... I really hope it...”

Her voice cut off into noise. That was the rest of the message.

Carlos checked: 5 missed voice mails. But the time stamps were recent, the news was recent . And they were still alive.

“ Why didn't I get these before?” He made to check the next voice mail. “My phone didn't even ring except that one time—is this some other weird desert thing?”

He silenced Cecil when the next message started, a little bit older.

“Hey, Carlos. I'm going to keep trying this, I hope you're getting these, or will get these, or something. Listen. We did follow the masked army—Doug said it would be safe to return to their camp with them. He's introduced us around a bit, his partner seems nice, everyone seems really nice here. I'm going to talk to them, see if they might be able to help us storm the University. One man can't possibly be enough to take out an army, right? Okay, I need to go talk to Doug and Alisha. Please call me back as soon as you get any of these messages.”

They both said nothing for a moment.

“Masked...army?” Carlos boggled at the thought.

He opened the next message.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Synopsis:
> 
> Avery wakes groggily to Kevin asking them to blink and show that they are awake; they don't open their eyes. While they attempt to make sense of what has happened--their eye really hurts, something seems really wrong--Kevin talks about how they haven't been the best intern, because they've been unconscious for a while, and he's had to do announcements on his own. He threatens to turn Avery into the decoration, threatens to replace them, and eventually reveals that he knows they're awake, though it isn't certain why he knows this. He stands over them, and pries open their right (good) eye, forcing them to look up at him. Oddly, despite the force implied in the action, he doesn't harm them, but tells them to get up and stop lying about being asleep still.  
> Avery doesn't sit up, but instead tries to take stock of their location; they're in Carlos' office, which is a bloody mess but shows signs that Kevin hasn't been continually decorating it. They look at Kevin, and realize now that his face is a bit more cleaned up and less bloody, that he's only missing one eye: the other, although beginning to drip blood again, is visibly a robotic eye. They put two and two together, realize that there's more than just their own blood on the desk but Kevin's as well, and come to the conclusion that he's given them his other eye.  
> When Avery opens their new robotic left eye, everything is burningly, painfully bright. They shut it again almost immediately, complaining that it hurts, to which Kevin accuses them of not being appreciative of his gift to them. He calls it an upgrade, explaining that was how they upgraded him, although the "they" in this case is not explicitly stated.  
> Avery awkwardly attempts to thank him, trying to protect themselves from bad reactions, but also asks why he gave them his eye. Kevin explains that he wants to help everyone reach their full potential, then calls himself Avery's friend and uses this to tell them a secret: he doesn't think everyone is taking advantage of their opportunity to reach their potential. Avery plays along as they discuss this, and pretends to be his friend as well, as he admits that he's upset because under the Smiling God, they're all supposed to be productive and happy--and doesn't everyone want to be happy? Kevin seems distracted, unhappy with the situation. He isn't even smiling.  
> But that smile comes back as he offers Avery something special: since Avery was such a good teaching assistant, and people know who they are, they should be the full time radio announcer. People will actually listen to them! They have better rapport with their peers.  
> They accept the offer, unsure what refusing it would mean.
> 
>  
> 
> aaand the second bit is not gross so no synopsis for that.
> 
> thank you all for reading, and I love every comment I get! you're awesome. c:


	26. Masked Army

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Kayali meets the leaders of the masked army somewhat more formally. They discuss tactics.  
> Cecil calls up an old friend to ask about the desert otherworld.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings! Happy day for everyone!

It hadn't been easy rounding up the students again; Dr. Kayali couldn't imagine what it may have been like if they'd been followed by an entire class. Many of them didn't know well who she was, and even knowing her or either of the other professors didn't necessarily mean that following their decision to ally with a huge, masked man seemed viable.

In the end, it might have just been the desperation to get out of the sweltering sun that made the decision easier. They might have been marching to their deaths, but staying in the desert would have been a death march anyway.

Doug led the way, and Dr. Kayali followed. Dave and Theo took up the back, the psychology professor having to help a stumbling Dave through the sand. Nobody said a word as they approached the camp, as the tents rose up to tower around them, impossibly enormous.

The man who led them into the camp was by far not the only resident, although it seemed somewhat that he may have been the largest. They seemed to respect him, and Dr. Kayali wondered somewhat if she'd already made peace with the leader of the camp.

(That did bode well for them, if she had.)

Still, there was a certain amount of gawking from the strange masked figures in the camp, at least as far as anyone could tell. Each of them, like Doug, seemed to exist as a silhouette--yet a solid silhouette, one draped in perfectly solid clothing, generally shades of whites and pale tans, so they wouldn't overheat in the desert sun.

Perhaps a little more magnificent, each of them hid behind the face of a desert animal, and each mask was distinct. Some were familiar, others were unnameable, like the strange canid mask covering Doug's face. In the midst of so many animal masks, it was hard not to realize that the entire time they'd wandered the desert, they hadn't seen a single animal.

(Maybe, Dr. Kayali reasoned, the masked army had hunted any animals for sustenance. She couldn't imagine there being any other reason. She didn't want to imagine any other.)

Some of the students were dehydrated, Dave was barely on his feet, and once they'd reached the shelter of the encampment, the group was split to different clusters.

(They nervously went where they were shuffled off to, because who was going to argue with giant masked figures?)

Those who needed it most dearly were given shelter, water, a place to sit down. Dr. Kayali attempted to follow the other professors, only for Doug to stop her and turn her back around. He gestured to himself. He gestured to her. He clasped his hands together, and gestured for her to follow.

Seemed she was sticking with him. Maybe, just as he seemed to be the leader of the camp, she'd been taken to be the leader of her own group.

Some part of her anticipated a bigger, more impressive structure for the leader of the camp to be living in. It was just another tent, same as anyone else's; he was more of the modest leader type. Didn't place himself above his people. She could respect that.

Out from the massive tent, a second figure emerged, draped in the same desert rags, but wearing a more colorful mask, like some variety of bird, with the paint somewhat faded from the constant sunlight. Indicative of how much time they all spent outside.

Doug leaned in to speak quietly to his partner, conscious of the irritation that their voices could cause to their more delicate guest. The second figure took the cue, whispering back; for a few moments they conferred right in front of Dr. Kayali, and then Doug drew his sword to write in the sand once more.

[This is Alisha.] He wrote this and amended momentarily, [They are my partner.]

Dr. Kayali smiled a little faintly, unsure whether she was meant to do any particular greeting, but she replied, "Hello, Alisha. My name is Sylvia. I'm traveling with a group of students, from the University...we've recently somehow found ourself in the desert here and--"

She was cut off when Doug gestured for silence. His partner pulled their own sword out--longer, but thinner than his--and wrote more neatly into the sand: [Doug tells me that Kevin has been troubling you.]

It occurred to her that she had no idea how much information the masked man had conveyed in the exchange with his partner, but she nodded. "He has. He's... He's been killing students, he's brainwashed professors, he... um..."

As Alisha reached down to touch a fingertip to her face, Dr. Kayali lost track of her words. Though not as large as Doug, their hands were still large enough that they couldn't so much just touch the carved half-smile on her face, but rather, just the whole half of her face.

After she allowed this (because why resist?), Alisha seemed to come to a sudden new conclusion about something: they conferred with Doug again, quietly, and then he was the one to excuse them both with a simple, [We need to talk.]

Alisha stepped back into the tent, their partner following after, and then Dr. Kayali sat outside, still in the sun, wondering how the rest of her group was faring. If maybe they were in the shade somewhere. Maybe they were getting a drink somewhere.

A massive dog crept up to her, and when she looked up to face it, the animal licked her face with an enormous tongue, large enough to quite efficiently lick her entire face. She shuddered and wiped the spittle from her cheeks, especially hoping to clean it away from the wounded side of her face.

"Go on," she hissed to the dog, "Shoo. I'm busy right now."

It sat down next to her, instead. Despite herself, she sort of appreciated the shade that the dog's presence provided, and fit herself into the massive animal's shadow.

And she called Carlos, because she couldn't think of anything else to do.

“Hey, Carlos. I'm going to keep trying this, I hope you're getting these, or will get these, or something..." she began, and she continued until Doug's head peered out from the tent again, and he gestured her inside.

She quickly apologized to Carlos' answering machine, and hung up.

The inside of the tent was nicer than she imagined at first sight, and must have been considerably cooler than standing out in the sun. Dr. Kayali noted several bundles of herbs hung from the tent supports, there was a soft makeshift bed for each Doug and Alisha, as well as a pile of scrap fabric that must have belonged to the dog. Alisha gestured for her to take a seat on the scrap pile; she wasn't sure if that was rude, or just the smallest thing in the tent for her to sit on, but she walked over and sat down.

Doug, in the meantime, had produced a huge metal canteen from somewhere in the mass of draping fabric covering him, and poured water into the cap. It was bowl-sized in Dr. Kayali's hands, and she accepted the water graciously, drinking it down before she realized that they were still attempting to talk to her.

Momentary distraction paused, she set the half-bowl of water in her lap and peered at the words that Alisha had written in the packed dirt floor in front of her.

[We've decided that we will help you go to war.]

Dr. Kayali hesitated, head a bit spun by the suddenness of that declaration. “War...? I wasn't under the impression it was any kind of warfare. We're simply...ill-equipped to handle this... ...whatever Kevin is.”

Alisha corrected their earlier statement, [We think it's best to go to war.]

“Over one person?” she asked, and she hardly had to look to know they were both nodding in response. Maybe it made sense—maybe they just knew more about how to deal with Kevin, maybe one person really was worth going to war.

Still, the idea made her uneasy, and it made her all the more uneasy being presumed to be the leader for the whole group. Making that decision of whether to agree.

“There... won't be anymore unnecessary deaths, correct?” Dr. Kayali questioned.

[Only necessary deaths.] That was Doug's response, this time. She watched the crosshatching on the floor as they had to scratch their old responses out everytime either of them wrote a new one. Communication difficulties were a mess, even if they did... somehow... seem to be perfectly fluent in understanding and writing English.

She said nothing for a length of time, and then, “I need to... deliberate with the remainder of my companions, you understand, I'm sure. Going to war is... a grand use of resources, I don't know if we're ready for that yet?”

Alisha's next reply came off somehow more stern, [You need to be ready. It's already happening.]

“I'll talk to my comrades about it,” Dr. Kayali replied, hoping her voice sounded stern enough to be worth listening to. She already had a feeling it wasn't going to make a difference in the long run, regardless. The ease with which they'd agreed to war, she figured they must have been waiting for an excuse to take Kevin down.

(That, or maybe they just really liked going to war. But that would be weird.)

[Then deliberate. We will war with you, or without you.] Alisha's replies were less casual than Doug's, written in a neater form and more commanding. Dr. Kayali sighed and nodded, she said she'd ask the others.

And while she went from tent to tent, searching for her companions, she tried to call up the missing pair again. Hoping. Hoping beyond hope that Carlos would pick up, that Cecil would be with him, that someone would know whether warring was going to be the right option.

Voices in the background burned her ears as she tried to shut out the sound, hoping it wouldn't interrupt the next message she tried leaving for Carlos.

“I—I tried to talk to Doug and Alisha, like I mentioned in my last message. They're... I don't know, Carlos.” She sighed. “I don't know about them at all, but I think... they want us to go to war? Against one person? I suppose your friend—I suppose Cecil ... would know what to even do. I don't... know if I've made the right choice coming here. I don't know if I get to even... pick anything, anymore, where this all is headed...”

She peered into a tent where she heard voices that sounded familiar, human, as well as the drone of a couple of the masked figures. They quieted as she looked in, still muttering into the borrowed phone (which she wasn't sure who to return it to at this point, anyway.)

“I honestly don't know if you got any of my messages, but you haven't responded,” she continued. “We're... safe here for a while.”

That wasn't entirely true, or at least, she wasn't entirely sure it was true. The group she'd stumbled in on consisted of her fellow professors; Dave laid out with a damp rag on his forehead and a bowl of water to drink from, Theo with a student at their side. Maybe dispensing psychological advice. Maybe just providing a shoulder to cry on, for the young woman with a smile carved into her features.

Dr. Kayali looked away with a frown, for a moment she almost forgot she was leaving a message, but she carried on. “Dave is pretty dehydrated. I'm, um—” she wanted to think about anything but the gash she'd let Rachelle carve into her face. “I'm fine. I don't know if you're busy with Cecil, or science, or whatever you're doing, but I just want you to know—“

She almost wasn't sure what to tell him. That they were going to have to go to war? That Kevin was probably killing anyone they'd left behind?

“We're alive so far,” she concluded. “We're alive, we're... fighting. Please, keep fighting for us. We're going to keep fighting for ourselves, just in case this never gets through, but...”

Going to war? She wasn't sure there would be any survivors in a war with the involvement of a giant masked militia. Even on their side.

“I really hope it's the right thing to move forward with this, Carlos. I really wish that your friend were here to advise me,” she muttered into the phone, shielding it with her hand to hopefully block out the noise as a chattering pair of masked men wandered in. “This isn't my expertise, at all. I'm a scientist , and this is... ...I don't know. Please, if at any point you do get these messages... call me back. Sooner rather than later. Tell me that I'm making the correct choice, Carlos. I need to know we'll all see each other again someday, alive.”

She didn't even bother saying goodbye again. She'd said it on every other message.

Dr. Kayali hung up the phone and walked over to her companions, taking a seat by the professor who she hardly knew, and their student sitting silently, half in a hug. It wasn't proper, wasn't professional, and somehow, that was starting to mean less.

They were just fellow soldiers, here. They might fight together, they might die together.

“You think Dave is going to be alright?” she asked quietly.

“You should get your cheek looked at,” Theo replied.

Dr. Kayali reached up to touch the half-smile.

“...You're probably right.”

* * *

"Hi, you've reached the voicemail of Mayor Dana Cardinal. This is my—”

An identical voice interrupted the machine, breaking in with a, “Cecil, why?”

Cecil's phone sat out on the kitchen table; they'd returned to Carlos' apartment after the voicemails from Dr. Kayali, interested in a bit of peace and quiet away from Mx. Mitchell, so they could discuss their next course of action.

Which had to be a course of action that involved the desert otherworld. There wasn't any other way to do it. Protecting the newest budding iteration of Night Vale was meaningless if they left so many of their own to some senseless fate in unfamiliar territory.

But Cecil had never met any masked army before. Cecil had met no Doug or Alisha and knew nothing about them.

So he'd called up the one person who he thought might know more. Actually, he'd called her up three or four times. Okay, more than that. He kept trying to call her all through eating dinner, and continued to try again, after. She eventually picked up.

“Dana! I'm so glad you aren't busy,” Cecil replied, smiling an embarrassed smile across the table at Carlos, who knew as well as he did that she very likely was busy. “Listen, I wanted to ask you some questions about that whole, you know, dog park thing? The desert otherworld? I mean, since you're not busy and—”

She interrupted, “Cecil, could you please just get to the point? I mean, I actually am pretty busy, being mayor and all. You know.”

“Oooh, busy doing mayor things? Well, that sounds very—”

“Cecil.” Her tone hid a warning. If he didn't get to the point, she wasn't going to keep entertaining his babbling. “Please, just ask me whatever you keep calling me for.”

He hesitated before getting to the point, “Dana, when you were out in the desert otherworld—I mean, the dog park—was there...anyone else with you? I mean, I know you mentioned a lot of things, some stuff about mountains and everything. Didn't you... say something about an army, though? Some...masked figures maybe?”

“That was a while ago, Cecil, but I think yes?” Dana sounded only half-certain, herself. “They were very nice to me, the ones who I spoke to. They couldn't actually speak, without causing actual physical pain, so I worked with one of them—I guess he was their leader? We worked on some spelling lessons. I guess they knew what I was saying, but nobody really knew how to talk back to me.”

Cecil tried to jump in at this point, but she continued talking, and Carlos couldn't help the small grin that spread across his face at seeing Cecil cut off by someone else's rambling for a change.

“This was all so long ago, though. I don't remember their names, or what they looked like, except they were very tall, and they all had these different animal masks. And I guess the leader—I think that was what he was—I asked him what his mask was, he said the animal didn't exist anymore? I don't know why, and it was very strange but—”

Finally, Cecil broke in, “That is very strange, Dana, and I don't know why someone would do that either, but tell us more about the actual masked army. You said they were friendly?”

“Oh, yes. Very friendly,” Dana agreed. “They welcomed me, which was really nice because it was so hot and dry in the desert, Cecil. I don't know what they were really an army for, though. I don't know who they were fighting out there.”

Carlos joined in, “They were fighting someone?”

A pause, as Dana perhaps scoured her memory to figure out who was talking to her now. “Oh, are you Cecil's new boyfriend? I'm Dana, I used to intern for him back at the Night Vale Community Radio station.”

“I, um, yes?” he replied, flustered at the word.

(Boyfriend? Was Cecil introducing him to people as that? Were they boyfriends? Maybe they were boyfriends. He didn't think he minded being boyfriends. Actually, that would be pretty neat being boyfriends.)

It took Cecil to get the conversation back on topic, “Yes, Dana, this is my wonderful boyfriend Carlos, and I would love to tell you about his beautiful, perfect hair some time, and you know I would, but.” He hesitated a moment, like it took conscious effort not to talk about Carlos' beautiful hair. “He did ask a very good question. This masked army, this army you met, they were fighting somebody?”

“Oh, sure,” she answered, “That was sort of their whole thing. They were an army, and they fought... something . I still don't know what, Cecil. I always stayed back.” It sounded like she was done talking. She wasn't. “...They came back hurt, though. I guess there was another army out there? Or other armies? I don't know, really. Maybe they were fighting themselves.”

Carlos frowned. “Why would an army fight itself? That seems counterproductive.” Cecil nodded agreement to that statement, though he said nothing.

“I don't know,” Dana replied, “Listen, I don't remember a lot from the desert, anymore. That was a long time ago, I think we should probably stop talking about it—why are we talking about it?” Her tone had changed suddenly. “You never want to talk about the past, Cecil.”

Cecil sighed, “We need to know how to help the people who are trapped out in the desert, Dana. So we can help get them home safely.”

“Why?” Her voice held an accusation. “You never tried to get me home safely, and look, I got home fine . Became mayor, even. They'll be fine .”

“But Kevin—” he began, only to be interrupted.

“Why are you worried about masked armies, then?” Dana asked. “This is about Kevin? You need to stop dancing around the subject.”

Cecil grimaced, “That time I wasn't, Dana.” He leaned forward against the table, getting closer to the phone as his voice dropped lower. “Carlos' boss left the University, and we believe that they're looking for help from this army. We need to know how safe it is.”

“Oh, well in that case, they're much safer with the masked army than with him,” Dana admitted. “I mean, they might go off and fight and things, but they're nice.”

For a few moments, Cecil said nothing. Oh, he certainly looked like he had everything to say. Looked like he had everything to say and would like to start saying it all, spilling out words until they all ran out, but he hesitated.

Carlos gestured for him to speak. When that didn't work, he spoke up, quietly, hoping that Dana wouldn't be able to hear, “What's wrong, Cecil?”

He shook his head, staring down at the table. His glasses slid down the bridge of his nose, and he adjusted them, and he spoke up again, “Dana, do you think they're safe with the masked army? I mean, safe from Kevin, too. Not just safer than with him.”

“Oh, well, that's hard to know, Cecil,” she answered. “I never really met him personally, I've only ever heard of him? I don't know what Kevin can do? I know he's like you—”

“He is nothing like me,” Cecil interrupted, voice too sharp and too defensive.

Dana sighed, “Well, you know what I mean, right? I don't know.”

Cecil said nothing, staring at the phone. His hands shook, clenched into fists, Carlos wasn't sure whether it was anger or hurt. The comparison certainly seemed to have stung.

“I'm sorry, Cecil,” she eventually added, perhaps expecting his displeasure, perhaps she somehow felt it too, as tangibly as Carlos could practically feel it oozing off of Cecil. He didn't answer, either to accept or refuse her apology. She waited, and then excused herself from the phone call. “Listen, I have to go—you know, important mayoral duties. You can call me if you ever want to talk, okay? Even if you're gone. I still consider us friends.”

She waited a moment longer and then said, “Goodbye, Cecil. I'll talk to you later.”

“Goodbye,” he muttered as she hung up.

He turned the phone back onto silent, a condition it seemed to always be in when he wasn't actively using it—

(He said it helped control any outbursts the device might have. It didn't stop them, certainly not, but while it was on silent, the intensity of any strange cloud patterns or bloody messages experienced a significant reduction.)

—and he pocketed the phone again. Carlos watched him, uncomfortable, but he didn't think his own discomfort was even a shade of whatever was going through Cecil's head. He stared at the table, maybe straight through the table, all three eyes as unfocused and distant as his third eye always was.

Carlos rose from his seat, slowly to make sure he didn't startle his boyfriend, and walked over to his side. He crouched down.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, taking Cecil's hands in his.

Cecil shook his head, voice quiet as he murmured, “It's nothing I haven't said.”

He brought Cecil's hands up to his face and kissed each knuckle in turn before he spoke again, reassuring as he could manage. “But if you want to talk about it, then that's okay, too. I don't mind if you said it before.”

At first he refused to talk, but staring down at Carlos' concerned face seemed to melt down the next wall he'd been trying to bolster.

(Carlos had been breaking down a lot of those. Cecil couldn't even remember the last person who he'd told so much to.)

“You know what I said. Kevin could have been me, and I could have been him—I mean, still not literally, never literally—but Dana is right.” He trailed off. Carlos wasn't sure what Dana was right about. What had she said? He tried to figure out what it could have been.

Cecil continued to speak on his own, once he'd found the words, “I don't know what that masked army fought against, that Dana said they always returned from injured. It could have been anything, well, almost anything, but at the time, he was in Desert Bluffs. He wasn't there, with the army. So whatever they were fighting...”

Again, Cecil trailed off. Carlos sighed, watching the distant look on Cecil's face. It seemed like maybe the gears were turning into place on what exactly was going on.

And he didn't like what he was seeing.

“We need to call back your friend, Carlos,” he concluded. “Call her back, and tell her not to go to war with the army. It's not safe, and they won't win . Not against Kevin, not against his vile Smiling God.”

Carlos frowned. “Then...what?”

Cecil's expression looked...broken was the best word to describe it. Visibly upset, melancholy. He took Carlos' face in his hands, pulling him closer, kissing him long and hard and like he wasn't sure he'd ever do it again. Carlos had to pull back, the gesture terrifying him more than making him melt like Cecil's kisses usually did.

“Someone needs to go out into that desert,” Cecil muttered, breathy from their kiss.

“Then we'll go,” Carlos replied. No hesitation.

Cecil shook his head, and predictably forbade his following. “You need to stay here, Carlos. I won't see anybody else hurt over something that's between me and Kevin.” He tried to take Carlos' hands in his again, to twine their fingers together.

Carlos pulled away. “This isn't just about you now, Cecil,” he argued. “Those are my friends that he has there, my friends that he's hurting, my friends that he's killed . This isn't some... some melodramatic fiction book, you don't get to just—you don't get to go dramatically sacrifice yourself in some stupid final battle, rescuing everyone, or whatever , I don't even know what you think you're doing.”

He tried to interrupt, but Carlos raised a hand, and managed to silence him.

“No. Don't say anything. It's not just your fight, it's not even your people! Those aren't your people out there, the only person there you even know is Kevin. Everyone else—they're all my people. My city's people. Why would you say I can't go with you?”

Into the momentary quiet that followed, Cecil murmured a near-silent, “I couldn't bear to see you hurt.”

“Then look away,” Carlos muttered. “Look away, because what do you think you're doing right now? Do you even take me seriously, Cecil?” He paused. “I don't really mean look away, that was just—that was just dramatic effect okay. Look at me, Cecil. Please.”

He took Cecil's face in his hands, and momentarily, the radio host's two dark brown eyes looked up to meet his. Maybe it even felt like the third was looking his direction, for a change.

“Please, Cecil,” he murmured, tracing circles on his boyfriend's cheeks. “I know you want to protect me. I know this stuff is...well everything that's been going on is weird , and it's been frightening. But you need to take me seriously—stop.. stop dragging me around like I'm an accessory to whatever you're doing.”

Cecil frowned. “I don't... know what you mean.”

“I wanted to do some kind of... scientific something ,” Carlos replied, “Or even anything at all, to inspect the Void, to figure out something . But then we're looking for radio stations, and then you're doing weird broadcasts and I don't feel like we're doing anything at all to even think about everyone that's stuck in the desert?” He grimaced. “Now Sylvia's calls come through, and you want to run out there alone?”

He didn't try saying anything that time, watching Carlos sadly.

“I know you know a lot more about what's going on than I do, but this means a lot to me, too, and you need to actually let me do something. You need to let me help .” He smoothed back Cecil's hair, once, and then lowered his hands. “Okay? Can you let me help?”

After a long pause, Cecil conceded with a nod and a quiet, “Okay.”

Carlos smiled a little sadly at him, because it was a victory, it was some kind of an understanding, but something that maybe he wished he'd never have had to argue about.

Running away into some strange desert otherworld, possibly to never return.

“I think,” he eventually said, “That we should probably leave in the morning—it's sort of late? And I want to be rested—and you should be rested—for...whatever's out there.”

Cecil nodded slowly, “I...suppose that makes a lot of sense, yes.”

As Carlos rose to his feet again, he offered to help Cecil up. His offer was refused.

“Please, can I just have a few minutes?” he asked quietly.

Carlos half considered trying to ask him if there was anything else he wanted to talk about—but, no. He would have if he wanted to. He nodded, “Alright. I'll be waiting, though, don't keep me waiting too long.”

He tried to make it sound flirty, and planted a kiss on Cecil's forehead, above his extra eye. Carlos left the room to get changed into his pajamas, and began a long waiting game.

Cecil eventually crawled into bed with his boyfriend already half asleep, and buried his face into Carlos' shirt, and that was how they slept, that night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I'm sure you guys have noticed, this update took a little longer than they usually do. I kind of dropped the ball on that one. I've been in the midst of a bit of a medical run-around, so updates may be somewhat spotty until I can get everything sorted out, but rest assured, I'm going to keep writing, and this will definitely get finished someday.
> 
> anyway, thank you all for reading and commenting, your support makes it worthwhile to keep on writing. <3


	27. Into the Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos and Cecil depart for the desert.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings this chapter.

Cecil stirred groggily in the morning, with Carlos already digging through his wardrobe, laying out clothes on top of the dresser. Maybe he was trying to plan the best outfit to wear out into the desert, maybe he was hoping to pack several.

“Don't wear your binder,” Cecil muttered, muffled, into the pillow.

Carlos spun to face him, surprised at the sudden comment. “Don't—why not ?”

(He'd tugged it on that morning, again. It still didn't feel great to wear again, but he wasn't so sure he wanted to go anywhere all of his students would be, and let them all see—let them...well, know more than he wanted them knowing.)

“The desert is very hot. And we might be walking a while.” He rolled onto his back, reaching out to grope his hand around on the bedside table until he found his glasses.

For a few moments, Carlos considered arguing, but he did have a point. “You need to lend me another shirt then. Mine aren't big enough to...hide anything.”

Cecil removed the shirt he was wearing, and tossed it at Carlos, who took a balled up shirt to the head and nearly lost his glasses. Laughing, he pushed them back up the bridge of his nose and pulled the shirt off his head. “Okay. What about you?”

“Maybe I'll wear one of yours,” he replied, sinking back into the sheets again. “Give me one of those science shirts. Those are nice.”

Shaking his head, Carlos nevertheless dug through his novelty t-shirts until he produced one he thought was fitting enough, and threw it at Cecil. As his boyfriend looked over the shirt, Carlos watched. Below a stylized atom, big bold letters declared: “I've got my ion you.”

“...I don't get it.” He pulled the shirt on anyway, and it was a bit tight, and a bit short on him, but Cecil didn't seem to notice or care.

Carlos laughed a little, “It's um, well see it's funny because the atom represented there, it's an ion—that means it has an abnormal number of electrons, see. That's a... um, it looks like it's probably a sodium ion, I mean, the artist sort of took some liberties, I guess...” He trailed off, now staring at the shirt rather intently, caught somewhere between trying to determine what artistic representation was before him, and admiring the way the t-shirt hugged tightly against Cecil's chest.

“It looks really good on you,” he managed after a moment, with a bit of a giggle.

Cecil looked down at himself. “Oh, does it? Neat.” He adjusted the shirt, tried to pull it down a little further, but it was too small to pull down, leaving a bit of his midriff exposed. Carlos thought for a moment, maybe he could have given Cecil one of his bigger shirts, instead.

Nah.

“I should um. I'll go get changed,” he said after a moment, hurrying off to the bathroom to change into Cecil's shirt. He pulled off his own shirt, struggled out of his binder, and took a moment just to breathe as he considered the replacement shirt he'd been given. It was a button-up, like Cecil had attempted some amount of professionalism to go to the radio station the day before, but Carlos couldn't help but crack a smile at the assorted dogs patterned all over the garment. He wasn't sure if that still counted as professional, or just eccentric.

But it smelled like Cecil, that sort of seawater-and-ritual-incense scent that he was sure his boyfriend had rubbed all over him while they slept. He pulled on the shirt like a piece of armor, like it offered some protection even without his binder underneath.

(He looked long and hard at the mirror. It was covered, as per Cecil's request. He left it covered. Maybe it was better for the both of them, right now.)

When Carlos stepped back out into the bedroom, Cecil was still waiting for him, lounging lazily on the bed. He looked over, and cracked a grin. “Oh, you make that look good .”

Carlos laughed, straightening his shirt. “Aren't you ever getting out of bed?”

“Well, I could, but...” Cecil trailed off, and shrugged. He patted the bed, and Carlos walked over and took a seat next to him. This wasn't acceptable for more than a moment before Cecil pulled him into his lap and a tight hug.

He relaxed into the embrace, and that could have been the end of that, but Carlos knew they were going to need to get moving, eventually. People depended on them. That couldn't just wait forever, couldn't go after everything he'd have liked to do with Cecil. He tilted his head to look up at Cecil's face as well as he could, and asked, “Did you grab everything you needed?”

“Grab everything...?”

“You know, last night,” he clarified. “You grabbed everything at least, right?”

Cecil flushed in that familiar purplish way. “How did you know I...?”

Carlos smiled, a little sadly, “Well your breath smells like alcohol and also I saw you left some stuff in the living room to take with. And um, your bag and stuff, you didn't have that yesterday.” He'd led with the first remark very intentionally, but there wasn't enough follow-through in the world to make him try and discuss that right now with Cecil.

“Oh. Yeah. I grabbed everything,” Cecil agreed. “Don't want to...go into the desert unprepared. Especially if we might—if we're... trying to run into Kevin. I have my bloodstones. Both sets, actually.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. “You've got more than one set?”

“Well, the other was my... well, they belonged to a family member. I don't use them very often. But it's important to keep a family heirloom alive. Maybe they will come in handy.” Cecil answered the question like he was trying to say nothing at all.

Carlos tried not to wonder about it too much. “Okay, well. If you've got everything packed. I guess we should probably eat breakfast, though, and are you alright?” He repositioned himself to sit in Cecil's lap, facing him instead of away from him.

“Of course,” Cecil insisted.

“But are you really?”

Cecil nodded, and that seemed to be the end of that, so Carlos leaned in and planted a kiss on his forehead, but got back up again after. “Come on then. Let's eat some breakfast, and then we can um, discuss what happens next.”

Carlos left for the kitchen to start cooking breakfast while his boyfriend dragged his feet after him. Cecil sat at the small table like he was glad to have a chair to hold himself up, but just as quickly, laid his head on his arms. Carlos sighed, but he didn't say anything.

It wasn't like Cecil hadn't basically admitted that he had a bit of an alcohol problem. Say nothing and drink to forget, right? Cecil hadn't drank in a few days. He wondered what was worth trying to forget now, but could imagine a few possibilities.

He just set a glass of water by Cecil while he pulled out anything perishable in his fridge. They'd feast, or well, there wasn't much to feast on, because he just had the remnants of the elaborate breakfast foods Cecil had brought over, but they wouldn't leave hungry. Carlos wasn't sure how long they'd be in the desert. He was almost glad he'd been putting off groceries, now.

Carlos' hands shook a little as he tried to start the stove to fry up the rest of the eggs, but Cecil was too hung over to look up and notice anything. Several minutes passed in absolute silence, this way, which if anything was probably a blessing for Cecil, and then a plate of only slightly burnt scrambled eggs and sausage was set in front of him.

He sat back up again, a small smile on his face. “Looks delicious.”

“Thanks,” Carlos replied, and sat down to his own plate. They ate in a sort of uncomfortable silence, because neither of them wanted to talk about what they were going to be doing as soon as they were done eating, or at least what they were going to be trying to figure out together.

As he finished his eggs, Cecil tried to break the silence, “You're sure you want to follow me?” he asked. “You... realize we might never come back.”

Not yet finished with his own breakfast, Carlos set his fork down anyway. He deliberated only moments. “I'm sure.”

“But what about everything here?” Cecil asked. “Friends, family? Your home? I'm sure you have so much to lose, if you leave—”

“Not really,” Carlos interrupted. “My parents aren't around anymore, and honestly, the biggest thing I had to lose—it's already gone. The University? It's already gone.” He hesitated, but decided there was no sense in keeping the next bit to himself, “I don't want to lose you, too. Then I really won't have anything left to lose.”

Cecil opened and closed his mouth a few times; for once he had nothing to say.

“Listen I—I know this is probably just... too much, too soon,” Carlos added on quickly. “I mean, I'm not saying... it's not like.” He took a minute to organize his words before they could come tumbling out in the wrong order. “Don't think this is like, we have to be you know... in love or anything. I mean—that's. That's not what it is! I mean, we just met, and, you know... but I really like you, Cecil. I mean. I really, really like you.”

As he continued to speak, Cecil hid his face, his blush deepening to a shade of purple like Carlos never imagined anyone's face could be. He didn't say anything immediately, waiting while Carlos stumbled over his words before he dared to speak, himself.

“I... I really like you too, Carlos,” he agreed, voice low and heavy. “I knew the moment I set eyes on you, you're beautiful. You're perfect.” He slowly lowered his hands from his face, smiling like he'd never laid eyes on anything so wonderful before.

Carlos felt his own face grow hot. “I'm not perfect, Cecil.”

“But you are,” Cecil replied with certainty. “Just...just look at yourself!”

He wasn't sure what to say. Carlos knew he couldn't just look at himself and say that, and the bad thoughts flooded in for a moment. He wasn't perfect, maybe he was the opposite of perfect if he was anything. His hips were too wide, his shoulders too narrow, he wasn't ever going to be as tall as he dreamed of being—

(Cecil was so tall next to him. He had reminded himself a few times, he wasn't short , he was average, but it was hard sometimes.)

—and as the list started to stretch out of control, he had to remind himself.

No, he wasn't perfect. But somehow, someone could look at him and think he was.

“Cecil, you're just... you're too sweet,” he finally said. “I'm... not perfect though. Nobody's perfect. But... thank you. You're... I think you're really wonderful, too.”

He giggled, then, and replied like he wasn't sure what else to say, “Neat.”

Carlos laughed. “You are. You're neat! You're really interesting , Cecil. I've never met anyone so interesting, I mean—scientifically, and otherwise.” But he was starting to embarrass himself a bit now, the gushing came more easily to Cecil than to him. Carlos cleared his throat and continued, “That's... why I don't want you going out into the desert alone.”

Yes, back to business. Cecil sat up a little straighter, because it was time to be serious again. “I want to be sure you understand—this is going to be dangerous. You could be injured, Carlos. You could die.”

“I could die here, Cecil,” he replied. “Even... even before anything different ever happened. I could mix chemicals wrong—or a student could—or I could be hit by a car—or I could run into the wrong people...” he trailed off a moment, but caught himself and continued. “Or I could be struck by lightning—which is statistically improbable but scientifically, not impossible, and I guess what I mean is, that's... I trust you, Cecil. I trust you, I want to go with.”

Cecil finally conceded with a nod and a sigh. “Okay I... grabbed my things, last night. I have my bloodstones—you should bring your phone, I'm bringing mine. They still work, there, and if we were to get separated—or if we wanted to call the others, of course.”

“Of course.” Carlos didn't like the idea of them getting separated. “What else?”

“Bring water. As much as you can comfortably carry, and um, I have some snacks, but you should bring some too. There's not a lot out in the desert to eat, and less to drink,” Cecil explained. “I'll probably be okay for a long time, but I can carry some things for you, too.”

Carlos nodded at that, not even questioning it, but asked instead, “What about the night? I've never stayed in a desert at night.”

He shook his head, “The sun never sets. Just dress light. It's going to be hot.”

“Oh.” Carlos didn't understand that, either. “Well I... guess I should get packed.”

As he rose from his seat, Cecil followed after to help him. It was a process that involved a lot of running back and forth around the house, stuffing an old duffel bag mostly just with any bottle they could fill with water, non-perishable snacks, and some other useful things. Like sunscreen—could never be too careful—and spare socks, because what if they got dirty?

(Carlos didn't put his binder back on, but he packed it in the duffel bag, because he knew if they arrived at the University and it wasn't in a total state of chaos, he wanted his students to see him the right way.)

The hardest part wasn't the packing, though. Carlos was sure, the hardest part was stepping out the door. Because he wasn't going to say anything, he wasn't going to admit.

But he was terrified they would never step foot in it again.

He locked the door, maybe for the last time, and the two of them left it behind, Cecil laden with both of their bags, on his repeated insistence that they were heavy, and the weight wouldn't bother him. When they stepped out into the afternoon, Cecil squinted his eyes against the harsh light. Carlos led the way to the University, well, where the University used to be.

Around the Void that had appeared in its place, the fence that had been risen warned against entering. Danger, it read: access forbidden. Do not enter.

Cecil approached the gate first, a solid oak door on a towering oak fence. As he pulled the door open, nothing was visible behind it except the Void. Which Carlos understood to be somehow connected to the desert, but he didn't understand how.

“Whatever happens,” Cecil reassured, “We will have each other.”

He stepped into the open door, and Carlos followed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's another chapter in the works, currently. it should be out soon.  
> I've been having a weird time with my formatting not working, anymore. so that's why there's no formatting in my chapters. I don't know how to get around this, but if anyone has any suggestions, that would be great.
> 
> I don't know what else to say. stay tuned, because it's going to get crazier from here.
> 
> thanks for any comments, as always!


	28. Sunshine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Avery gives their first broadcast as the new host of the University radio station. It doesn't go exactly according to plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back in the new Desert Bluffs and full of warnings. So:
> 
> If you want, you can probably read all the way until Kevin comes into the room. I would not advise reading past that, if you want to avoid....
> 
> **Blood and gore, this time featuring blunt force trauma. Yay.**
> 
> Synopsis at the end.

Avery's voice rang out clear over the University's PA system. They were going to do this. They were going to keep it steady, say it right, and everything was going to be okay . They shuffled Kevin's notes, scanned the first page once more, and damn it, they hosted the hell out of that radio station.

“To understand the world, we must first understand ourselves. Too bad we're so busy talking to each other, instead.

Good morning, Desert Bluffs. I know it's been a weird morning. It's been a few weird mornings, if we're being honest with ourselves. How many mornings? I honestly don't know. My watch stopped working, the clocks all stopped working, and it's sunny and bright all the time.

That's alright, though. It's just a new adjustment, and really, what a blessing in disguise, right? I know I sure as shit thought about eternal sunshine some nights, back when I first started as an undergrad. Would've cut down on the electrical bills every final that kept me burning the midnight oil, so to speak. Well, now we can just fling open the windows and let some sunshine in, and never have that issue again.

Before I get too carried away into the sunshine, I'd like to just take a moment to thank the old host, who's been keeping this station alive in preparation for me taking over. Yes, Kevin has done a great job—I mean, who does he even know, here? Nobody, really. But because he's a professional, he's kept this radio station running.

Well, now that era's over, ladies and gents. I know a lot of you already know me—I promise those of you who don't will be recognizing my voice soon enough, as I'll be running segments throughout the day. I'm no sweet honeyed announcer, but I think I'll do just as well. For those of you who don't know me, call me Avery. Aside from that, don't call me anything, seriously, let's get this out of the way. I'm not a boy. I'm not a girl. I'm a radio host.”

They laughed, surprised that the sound coming out of their mouth sounded almost... genuine for a moment. It was hard not to get caught up in the game.

“So I'm sure you're all thinking, what the fresh fuck have we got radio announcements for in the middle of a blazing desert? There's no hot new celebs to hear about, and I regrettably can't tell you the newest science news—I know, I'd have loved that, too—but here I am. This microphone and my voice and a stack of really sloppily handwritten notes.

I don't have sloppy handwriting. Sorry Kevin!

But what I can do, even if I can't... really read everything in front of me—I can share my little plan with you. We're going to get this place cleaned up nice, organized. There's enough of us here, no reason for theology to cry over religious texts in the library, and that creepy summoning circle in the painting studio? Totally not getting you guys any dates, let's be real.

So what I propose is this: We stop panicking.

Seriously, that's it.

There have been some plans put in place to ration water and food supplies for as long as they'll last, but honestly, that's about all we've got in the works for that. What happens when we run out of food and water? Has anybody even been thinking about the consequences?”

They tut-tutted into the microphone, and crumpled up the first sheet of their notes, tossing it into a wastebasket in the corner of the cleaned up broadcasting booth.

(Hygiene purposes. The cut on their face was no longer infected, but honestly, the stench was overbearing. They cleaned it. Kevin didn't like it, but they cleaned it anyway.)

“There's enough brains among us. We need to start delegating our forces accordingly. Someone's got to have some idea how to dig for water. And I'm sure we've got some horticulturists who can fathom growing food, somehow. I mean—this is honestly necessary shit, you guys. And the screaming and the hiding and the locking yourselves in rooms?

Hell, I spent a pretty long while locked in a broom closet of my own volition. It wasn't a great idea, but here I am, and I'm ready to tell you all: you can do it.

Climb out of those fortresses, come out of those closets—I mean, literally, but hey if you need to tell us all something about yourself, that's cool too, I just announced my gender over the radio—but anyway you need to quit hiding yourselves. I know it's scary. Hell, it's scared the piss out of me, but we've got a whole new world to try and sort out for ourselves. A world where... I don't know, there's no censorship laws on cursing over the radio?

I kid, though. I kid. But not really. We can take this world, take this place, take this everything that's been handed to us, and we can turn it into something great, Desert Bluffs. We can turn our scared masses into an organized civilization.”

They paused in the broadcast, looking over the next pages of notes. Honestly, their vision was hazy. One eye saw dimly in the booth, with the overhead lights smashed out. The other still saw everything too bright, and it hurt to look through either.

Avery was dizzy.

“With that call to arms out of the way, maybe some lighter news.

Because there are literally no cars here, I have no traffic to report. I, for one, am relieved. It's been too fucking many years getting stuck in that horrible commute back in—where the hell are we from? Whatever. Not important as where we are, where we're going.

Our future, Desert Bluffs. Free of traffic, safe from the dark, ready to work together to make it through an endless, sunny day. No rain, no clouds, but god, I feel like I've talked more than I've ever talked in my life, so I'll take you to the  [ weather ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Myv8te0rFLE) , anyway.”

As they switched the music on, and their microphone off, Avery pulled a pill bottle from their pocket. Something to ease that dizzy feeling a bit, they told themselves as they shook a couple of small white pills into their hand and swallowed them with a gulp of water from the glass on the desk. The music drifted in and out of awareness, they closed their eyes and laid their head down, and tried to focus on the feeling of solid ground beneath them.

The sickness had started when Kevin took them under his wing, to prepare them for their new... fate, it honestly sounded like. Some sort of weird destiny thing. They'd somehow graduated from radio intern to radio host in a way shorter period of time than they thought was supposed to be happening with any kind of real internship.

Kevin spoke about the job like it was the sweetest of blessings and the most vile thing he'd ever done, all at once. Told Avery how to play dumb, to keep people from thinking they were too serious. Make jokes on the air, have fun with it. That's what really made people listen.

The radio voice would come later, with practice. Now it was just a matter of making people listen, because they already knew who Avery was, they already had good memories, good opinions of Avery, they would want to believe a radio show hosted by Avery.

And if there was a little degrading humor thrown in Kevin's direction, it wasn't even that big of a deal. At this point, it was anything to get people on their side, and then the real molding and shaping could begin. Teaching them the real ways to behave as citizens of Desert Bluffs. Showing them how to reach their own productive potential, as Avery would reach theirs.

Their voice just felt raw, and their eyes were strained, and the healing half-smile on their face didn't even bother them anymore.

Now, it was the headaches. The constant, splitting headaches. They weren't proud to say, while telling everyone else to ration supplies, they'd taken anything of value from the wellness center to try and numb the feeling away.

It burned behind both eyes indiscriminately, not a care which one was real and which robotic. Avery lifted their heavy head off the desk again, and took a sip from their glass of water. That weather was going to end soon. They couldn't just throw on another—Kevin had gone over that etiquette—but no drug ever acted fast enough to wipe the discomfort once they stepped into that radio booth.

“That doesn't matter,” Kevin had told them. “Sometimes, you just have to broadcast through the pain. Whatever it might feel like—that's your job , and resisting your duties is... ...it's only going to make things hurt worse, in the end.”

They weren't sure if that was a threat. Was is personal experience talking, or a thinly veiled threat to keep them in line?

As the weather finished its final chords, Avery sighed and sat back up, and turned the microphone on again.

“Wow, that sounded like some lovely weather to me. I'm jealous—here I am, stuck in this booth, and you guys can all just go run around in the sunshine all day? It's really dark in here. I mean, I've got a pretty great upgrade—if you ever want to see, you can stop by. It's something else, that's for sure. Lets me see in any kind of dark.

That...was not on my script though, and neither is this. I've just heard pressing news from our own Dr. Sylvia Kayali—she called in, during the weather. I'm sure you guys know who she is, right? Head of the science department? Well, a while ago, Dr. Sylvia Kayali and several students and professors left to go explore a bit of our surroundings! I don't...know if anyone knew that. I just thought it was really cool when I heard about the expedition, though. They're really putting themselves on the line out there—but anyway.

She just called me, and there's some important news about the desert.”

Avery took a moment to really focus on the paper in front of them. It was a false report, blatantly so—they knew that Dr. Kayali and the others had gone off quite without permission. But they also understood the purpose of the message, and why Kevin had written it down.

“As it turns out, we aren't totally alone here, after all. For a while, all they saw was sand—but they've come upon a...a great, horrible camp. Big, towering tents, full of masked figures as tall as houses. I don't know about you, but I already don't like the sound of that.

Worse yet, Dr. Kayali told me personally that she thinks each and every one of them is heavily— ”

Armed , they were supposed to finish that sentence, but the door to the broadcasting booth slammed open and they reeled from the feedback the loud sound caused.

“ Do you mind ?” They snapped, spinning their chair around to face Rachelle.

She stood before them, a nasty scowl on her face, tugging down at the smile on her cheeks, and in complete disregard for the integrity of radio, she began speaking, standing in the open doorway, while the mic was still turned on.

“Get off that stupid radio,” she spat, advancing on Avery. “You're spreading filth— filth . Sunshine and productivity and—” then she literally did spit, a mouthful of saliva onto the floor, like she didn't care that Avery had just cleaned it up.

They tried to lean in toward the microphone, “Excuse me listeners, but it seems we've got a bit of a—”

Rachelle grabbed them and flung them from their seat. They hit the floor hard and lay there, in a dazed stupor for a few moments while she sat in their place and spoke, voice frantic, fast, and not at all broadcast ready.

“Everyone. It's important you don't listen to the radio—just don't. Don't listen to any of it—don't listen to Avery—don't listen to Kevin, most of all. They're only trying to hurt— ”

Avery grabbed her leg and tugged her back out of the chair, trying to pin her, though their strength right now was shaky at best. “Stop fucking with my broadcast!”

She kicked at them, shrieking, “You're brainwashing everyone! Don't listen to the radio! Don't listen to the radio!” It was clear she was hoping the microphone was still picking up on all of this, as she managed to shake Avery off. Rachelle tried to get back up, get at that microphone again, but Avery wrapped their arms around her waist and weighed her down.

“Stop! What the hell is wrong with you?” They snapped, and then more quietly, hissed to her in the hopes that microphone wouldn't pick up on it, “Are you trying to get us both killed ? What the hell do you think, I'm doing this for fucking funsies?”

It dawned on Rachelle all at once what she'd just done, then, and with the realization, she stopped struggling. Avery released her, sitting back up to rub uncomfortably at their eyes. Particularly that nasty robotic one. They were still refusing to open it.

“What do we do?” she whispered loudly to them.

Avery just shook their head, disappointed, and mouthed the words, 'I don't know.'

But they were going to wing it.

With actual difficulty, Avery tugged themself to their feet again, leaning heavily against the desk. They rasped into the microphone, “I believe...we've had a slight m-misunderstand...fuck, my head hurts.”

Their plan crumbled as they, themselves, crumpled forward against the desk and sunk to their knees, pulling the microphone down with them. Rachelle made a concerned move forward, but the door flung open at that moment.

Kevin wasn't happy.

“How dare you,” he hissed at Rachelle, advancing on her, ignoring Avery as they slipped beneath the desk to hide. “How dare you walk into my radio station and harass my radio host with your... your conspiracy theories .”

Rachelle tried to get to her feet as fast as she could, but stumbled and fell back, into the chair. She rolled away until she hit the back wall, staring up at Kevin, trying to formulate words, but nothing that came out sounded good enough. “I-I'm not—it's not—look at what you're doing to everyone, Kevin! Look at what you've done !”

He practically howled , “Do you think I don't know what I've done? Do you think I don't know what I'm doing , Rachelle? Do you think if I had a fucking choice , I would— **that microphone had better be turned off** .”

The last statement was a complete shift in tone, and Avery shuddered and nodded furiously, until their vision dissolved into spots. The microphone wasn't off. But they weren't going to admit that. Not with Kevin this angry.

“Good,” he replied pleasantly. “At least somebody around here listens .”

Again, he was facing Rachelle, only in the moments that he'd turned away, she'd grabbed the nearest heavy object, and next thing Kevin knew, he was being beaten with the sound equipment.

The horrific squeal of feedback as she slammed a heavy speaker over Kevin's head announced that Avery hadn't turned the microphone off at all, and they'd have been more horrified at the eventual outcome of this if it didn't look like it was... like it was working .

Unlike the time they'd tried to overpower him, Rachelle had the physical strength to keep swinging, and the presence of mind to grab something worth more than a couple of hits. Kevin fell to the floor, blood pouring from his scalp as she continued to slam the speaker against his skull until she was sure he wouldn't be moving again.

Avery didn't move from their spot, still clutching the microphone, eyes clamped shut. The dwindling feedback and Rachelle's panting breaths were the only sounds still echoing in their head, but they weren't sure they would ever forget the sound of someone's head being bashed in with a speaker.

“H-hey. Avery.” Rachelle crouched by them. “You still...with me? We need to get out of here. I don't... know if that did it.”

They wanted to express their disbelief, if that didn't kill him, then he was unkillable, there was no way— but a groan interrupted that thought.

It wasn't Rachelle who made that sound.

Opening their good eye again, Avery looked over in Kevin's direction, and the professor was already staring in his direction, horror plainly etched into her features as Kevin tried to lift his head from the floor, but couldn't quite manage it.

“Now that's... not... good... team building ,” Kevin hissed through gritted teeth, dragging himself along the floor toward both intern and professor.

Rachelle straightened up, she tried to pull Avery to their feet, but their legs just shook right out from under them; their head was still spinning from the feedback and the nauseating realization that Kevin was still moving even as his life seemed to spill out of his skull.

“Working together...are we...?” he spat like an accusation, and five tentacles pushed their way out from beneath his shirt. They grabbed for weapons in the room, and they grabbed for Avery and Rachelle.

“I will cut the rest of them off!” Rachelle cried out as she was picked up. “I swear on all things holy, I'll--”

The end of the black appendage stuffed its way into her mouth to silence her, and Kevin laughed bitterly. “You'll be doing... nothing... of that sort. You've been very bad... professor.”

When she bit down on the tip of his tentacle, he barely winced.

But he told Avery to close their eyes, and then he opened his.

Rachelle clamped her own eyes shut to try and block out the burning light that shone from Kevin's third eye. She'd seen it before—she'd seen it before and lost a good chunk of time after. She knew she couldn't afford to look again.

“Fine,” Kevin hissed, “Then I'll take the intern instead.”

Avery let out a yelp as they were picked up roughly off the ground, tentacles beginning to wind tightly around them, just to make them louder. Rachelle slipped up in that moment, and looked toward her student.

Shined across their contorted face, that half-smile and half-scream and squeezed shut eyes, she paid witness to the light of the Smiling God that Avery was trying to shut out.

It was beautiful.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Synopsis:
> 
> Avery begins their first broadcast, which is a whole lot of encouraging people that it's really not that bad being in the desert. They reassure that the eternal sunshine is actually really useful, that they need to stop panicking, and leave their closets. Well, physical closets. Although Avery themself essentially outs their own nonbinary gender to the entire University over the radio, telling everyone that they are neither boy nor girl, but are now just a radio host, as though that has become their gender identity.  
> It sounds from the radio broadcast that Avery is on Kevin's side, though slightly depreciating remarks slip in about Kevin's sloppy handwriting, and they refer to his friendlessness and not knowing anyone. They explain that, since nobody in the University is doing anything more than trying to ration supplies, they'll run out of food and water sooner rather than later and have no plan to replenish it. They take everyone to the weather: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Myv8te0rFLE  
> During the weather, it's revealed that Avery has been hoarding pain medicine from the wellness center, and taking unspecified, possibly over-the-top amounts of it to cope with dizziness and splitting headaches that have been coming on ever since Kevin started training them to take his place as the radio host. Though they take some medicine during the weather, it doesn't take effect very quickly, and they mourn having to go back to hosting the radio show while in pain. Avery's observations reveal that Kevin, at some point, told them that they would need to simply broadcast through the pain, or it would end up even worse. No certainty on whether it was a threat, or Kevin's own experience.  
> After the weather, they begin a report on how Dr. Kayali supposedly called during the weather--a fictitious report, of course--and informed them about the presence of a heavily armed, giant army in the desert. It seems to be aimed toward rallying the troops against the enemy, except their broadcast is interrupted when Rachelle bursts into the room.  
> She tells them off for broadcasting filth, and forces Avery away from the mic to tell everyone that they're being deceived, and not to listen to the radio or to Kevin, most of all. The two of them wrestle over who gets the microphone, as Rachelle tries to make sure everyone hears to ignore the radio, and Avery yells at her for ruining their broadcast. They admit to her, quietly, that they aren't doing it for fun--revealing that Avery has not, in fact, gone over to Kevin's side, but is acting for their own safety.  
> Though they try to fix the situation and resume the broadcast, Avery ends up collapsing against the desk, too dizzy to continue the broadcast. At that moment, Kevin bursts in.  
> Kevin accuses Rachelle of spreading conspiracy theories and advances on her with obvious intent to do harm; she tries to point out the harm he's doing, which he acknowledges. Kevin says he knows full well what he's doing, and expresses that maybe he wouldn't be, if he had a choice--he then turns to Avery to make sure the microphone is off. Avery lies, pretending they've shut it off, and after this momentary distraction, Kevin turns back to Rachelle only to find she's armed herself.  
> She tries to bash his head in with a speaker, and the feedback as she does this seems to mess with Avery even worse. By the time Kevin is sprawled out on the floor and seemingly dead, Avery is pretty disoriented and lost as well. She goes to help Avery out, and once her back is turned, Kevin tries to advance on them both. But he can't get up, in fact, he barely seems able to move--nevertheless, he accuses them of conspiring against him, and grabs both of them with tentacles. Rachelle threatens to cut the rest of them off, and he scolds her, then tells Avery to close their eyes. Both Avery and Rachelle close their eyes, because she knows what's coming--and since she won't cooperate, Kevin threatens to just take Avery instead, and wounds them so they'll cry out, causing Rachelle to open her eyes and see the light shining out from Kevin's third eye.  
> She remembers the Smiling God, and all is beautiful.
> 
> so that was.... another fun one.
> 
> as always, I appreciate comments, you guys are great. <3


	29. The Scientist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos witnesses the Void. In the desert, the masked army is surprised to see a face that looks nearly familiar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No real warnings for this chapter. There's a small amount of violence, but really any gore or anything is glossed over. shoot me a request if you want a synopsis and I'll put one up, otherwise I'm presently leaving it without one.

_In a vast and incomprehensible universe, Carlos could count beautiful moments like stars balanced on his fingertips. Yes. Massive glowing giants of gas and fire, disproportionately small in his hands. He felt like a giant. He felt immeasurably small._

_When he stepped into the Void, everything and nothing was all true at once._

_As a small child, his father had given him his first telescope, to admire the stars from far, far away. His feet left solid ground. Carlos knew he would float into space, and he could grasp the stars finally and see them up close._

_(It would be easier. His eyesight was better, up close.)_

_Years later, he would remember witnessing everything from so far away, in that tiny telescope, as an amoeba moved across the petri dish he'd focused his microscope over. If one thing was true, the world organized itself into infinitesimally smaller and smaller versions of the same design. Everything was just so._

_The stars were giant organelles, rotating in a cosmic amoeba. Perhaps the planets were, as well, or maybe they were vacuoles. Filled with foreign matter. Sucked toward some fate, digested in the amoebic entity of space, devoured into a black hole._

_(He had to remind himself to keep breathing, that his breath hadn't all been sucked into a black hole and left him.)_

_Matter collided, particles bounced together, and he had never progressed far enough into subatomic physics to understand any of it. But he knew on the macro, that something dropped toward the ground would fall with an acceleration of 9.8 meters per second, per second, as long as wind speed was negligible._

_In the vacuum of space, he wanted to drop a pencil or a rubber band, only he'd brought nothing of the sort into the Void with him._

_(He had dropped himself. Was he falling, or flying?)_

_Chemistry, though. That was where Carlos had really clicked. He had a profound respect for anyone who knew the other sciences, but nothing had been so interesting to him as the makeup of the world and universe itself._

_He knew the compounds that made up a human being, and couldn't begin to grasp the elemental nature of the Everything that Cecil had become to him, the moment he'd stepped into the picture. If he could have been carbon-dated, he might have determined how old that impossible man was, who smiled at him like an excited child, the world and innocence still brand new in his joy._

_If he could have identified even half of the chemicals that surged through his own body and mind when they kissed. It was seeing stars, it was astronomy and chemistry and unexpectedly perfect biology, the way they twisted together, their hands around each other's waists, kissing each other's lips, or staring into each other's eyes._

_The Void felt familiar, like it was staring back at him, like he'd seen it all before, and it could smile that same way without a face. Above the ease of Cecil's smile, he stared back like years of hardship ebbed away for the moment, because with Carlos, there was no hardship._

_He felt the Void closing around him, and he couldn't see Cecil—since the moment they had entered the empty space, he felt as though he'd entered it alone. But it was a comfortable quiet, and the cosmos closing around him felt warm, it felt like shelter, it felt like Cecil's hands on him, it felt like love._

_Was love the word? He'd insisted strongly that it wasn't yet, they barely knew each other. He knew Cecil even less. Like the world he'd thought he knew, opened up just a crack into the world he knew his lover lived and brought with him. Impossibilities, glowing clouds, angels jet black and tall as trees, and a voice dripping with honey that he could do anything for. A hand to hold as he explored the new worlds opened up to him. It was just so._

_It was a new and impossible science, something without a name, without pioneers, unless Cecil had laid the groundwork himself, somehow. Carlos didn't understand how possibility could open up like that, but he knew with his opportunity, he had to take it. In the space of the Void, he wasn't sure if he loved the universe greater, or the man who opened it up to him. As a scientist, he knew what it should be._

_The Void was just another name for a nameless nothing, a faceless entity taking on a face that he would have dreamed for a century even if they never spoke again. And he was sure of that now, not through scientific reasoning or empirical observation. No, but he knew with a certainty like he knew very few things in the world._

_There may have been a million galaxies floating freely in the ether of the Void, but Carlos was sure that what spun at the center of everything was no sun or gaping black hole, but a strange tattooed man with eyes as deep as the ocean and the most genuine of smiles._

_He loved the way their paths had crossed, and the way their chemistry worked. It was one of those pieces of his life, fallen into place._

_It was just so._

_It was just so._

_It was._

_And it was perfect._

 

* * *

 

Cecil returned to himself, alone and in the desert, disarray slowly organizing back into coherent thought as he opened his eyes to see the sun.

That he should be able to step through the Void and find himself anywhere but staring back into his own thoughts was surprise enough. He felt instantly the oppression of that burning light on his skin, and he doubled over to hide his face in his hands.

Cautiously, he called out, “Carlos? Carlos, we made it, right?” knowing he would hear no answer. They had entered together, but he could do nothing beyond that.

He wanted to protect Carlos, he wanted to hold that perfect man, keep him close, keep him safe, free from harm, and yet. There they were. Someplace else from each other, entirely. Cecil wiped the blood from his face but he knew it would keep coming until he reorganized himself completely. The thin black stream dripped from his eyes onto the sand. He brushed it away, in hopes to hide himself.

There was nothing to do except move, and so he lifted himself from the ground and began to walk, carrying his own bag and Carlos' supplies, both. An error he had devised in kindness, but never anticipated separation.

It pulled at the parts of him that had forgotten the Void already, had once again no recollection of identity aside from Cecil Palmer.

The desert was vast and endless, and Carlos could have been anywhere, but under the light of a Smiling God, he saw nothing but the world as anyone else would, his third eye squeezed shut to keep him safe.

By and by, a light became visible far away, atop something that didn't exist, or so he was supposed to say. Every reeducation the citizens of Night Vale ever thought they could give him, to erase the world he'd seen outside of their own; it never worked on Cecil.

He walked toward the mountain, not knowing what he walked toward, but gradually gaining focus on an encampment at its base. He realized instantly that he was not heading toward the University; he hoped only that Carlos had made the same choice.

As the tents grew larger in his sight, perhaps he grew larger in theirs as well.

Not one figure came out to greet him, but several, and running behind them to keep up, a pair of human-sized figures draped in pale cloth and wielding knives large enough to swing like swords at him. The tallest figure, masked with an old and forgotten desert dog, stopped several yards away and the other giants stopped behind him.

This was not so for the smaller figures, who rushed ahead with fire in their eyes and curses on their lips. “You dare come try to track us down?! You foul, murderous little—”

Cecil dropped his bags to move away, stumbling over his own two feet as he tried to find his voice again, to find some way to halt the attack of the two figures he knew must have known Carlos, and must have seen Kevin, and must have made a simple mistake—

Dr. Kayali swung at him, the weight of her weapon throwing her nearly off-balance, “Oh now you run! Where's your fucked up Smiling God now?”

“Sylvia, be careful!” the other figure called, “You don't know what he's pulling!”

She laughed once, sharply, forced, and swung the oversized knife at him again. Cecil slipped in the sand and fell flat on his back, and before he could scramble any further away, Dr. Kayali had the tip of the blade pressed to his chest.

Hard enough to draw blood, gentle enough not to kill him just yet. She was panting, trying to catch her breath as her companion caught up with her and pointed his own blade at Cecil, letting him know well that even if he could take down one of them, he had them both to come up against, and they were ready to end him.

Finally, he found his words below the lump that had formed in his throat. “Sylvia. Please. You know who I am. I'm Cecil.”

Her companion hissed through gritted teeth, “Who does he think he's—”

“Theo, stop.” Her voice was firm, but gentler now as the realization dawned on her. Her weapon did not lower, but she moved the tip from Cecil's chest. “Prove to me that you are who you say you are.”

Cecil hesitated, but replied, “You left Carlos so many... voice mails. We came to find you—I don't know where he is, Sylvia. I don't know what happened to Carlos. We came here together, and he just—” He let out a cry of pain, despite himself, as she drove the end of her blade into his shoulder.

Dr. Kayali's voice wasn't gentle anymore, “You lost Carlos? You don't know what happened to him? Are you even on our side at all, Palmer? Why don't you know what happened to my friend ?”

“I'm sorry!” he called out, “I've never come here before, I didn't know what would happen—we came through the Void—I thought we would come out together!”

She raised the weapon again, “You lost Carlos!”

Theo knocked the knife from her hand as she prepared to bring it down on Cecil again. It fell soundlessly into the sand; she turned to lash out at her companion only to find their weapon pointed at her. “You're a scientist, Sylvia.”

“He isn't our ally,” she hissed through gritted teeth, “It's his fault this all happened to begin with—we owe him no mercy.”

They lowered their weapon slowly and replied, “I know. We aren't allies. But recognize: we now have a prisoner. With a lot of information, Sylvia. Think rationally—he's much more use to us alive than he is dead.”

Dr. Kayali lowered her gaze to meet Cecil again, where he lay in the sand unwilling to move lest he be stabbed again. From his shoulder, from the small slice on his chest, from each of his eyes, that same foul black ink dripped that she knew ran in Kevin's veins as well. The tattoos on his arms shifted like a mirage, impossible to focus on for too long, moving uneasily. His hair, much longer than Kevin's, appeared stripped of color, as though it had all bled away, and though she saw more differences between the two of them as she examined him, there were still enough similarities.

“Fine,” she sighed. “You're coming with us, Cecil—and you had best come willingly.” She gestured back toward the masked army, their backup standing watch, far enough away not to cast a shadow on them, but close enough to move into action if needed.

Cecil didn't say a word, but rose to his feet as she ordered him to move. They passed by his bags on their way back toward the masked figures, and he told them to wait.

“There's water in those bags. Food,” he explained. “They can help you.”

At Dr. Kayali's command, Theo sheathed their weapon again, though it hung too big off their hip. Their outfits were clearly thrown together from anything that had been small enough to wear and carry; the group was preparing for war when Cecil had unexpectedly shown up in the middle of the desert.

Theo picked up both bags out of the sand, and Dr. Kayali kept her blade trained on Cecil, watching him, daring him to make any sudden movements.

He didn't. He followed in silence, and as they approached the tallest of the masked figures, he looked up to see the covered face of who he assumed was the leader of the entire operation. Yet it wasn't the massive man with the canid mask who spoke first, but perhaps his partner, standing next to him behind a mask of feathers and faded color.

Their words were not in English, but he knew them nevertheless. Their rough translation, though missing some venom, amounted roughly to:

“Hello again, Cecil.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think now we're getting into the meat of where everything is going to go nuts. I wonder how long until total implosion? hmmmm.
> 
> thanks for reading! as always, comments/kudos are appreciated!


	30. The Radio Host

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos finds the University, and something he was hoping to find, and something he never wanted to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hot damn, I've made it to thirty chapters.
> 
> Warning: Some gore. Includes a finger being removed. Synopsis to follow.

Carlos returned to his senses on a shifting, sandy ground.

The desert.

“Cecil, we made it!” He reeled around to face his companion, “Cecil, we—” He realized, with a sinking feeling, that he was entirely alone. The presence that had guided him through the Void, that warmth like Cecil's hands on his shoulders, it had left him with nothing but the warmth of the sun beating down overhead.

There must have been a mistake.

“Cecil?” he called out into the vast desert. “Cecil??” A little louder. All that met him in response was the warm wind blowing across the land, and the pressure of a loneliness that he may never have experienced before, at the depth currently tearing its way through him.

He'd come out to the desert so they would stay together, and maybe it was his fault, they hadn't held onto each other and now they'd lost one another.

Carlos steeled his will.

He was a scientist, a scientist . And scientists were always fine. Almost always fine. Almost always some degree of fine. He was fine, he insisted to himself, and he began to walk, because there was nothing else to be done for it.

The University would be somewhere. Cecil would be somewhere. Anything could be somewhere, everything technically was somewhere , even if that somewhere wasn't where he presently found himself. But it could be. He could be exactly where he needed to be.

Without the supplies that Cecil had carried in, his walk through the sunny desert was a dry and thirsty one. He wished he'd had the foresight to carry at least one bottle of water with him—but that's what came from trusting nothing bad would happen.

It was best to always prepare for the worst. He didn't even have his cell phone on him.

At length, the familiar campus came into focus, and Carlos was all at once relieved and unnerved. Seeing the University he'd worked at so long, adrift as an island of civilization in the middle of the desert, well it was jarring to say the least.

He didn't know who would be inside, or what it would even be like inside any of those campus buildings. He'd heard a bit about Kevin—was he going to be able to recognize danger if he saw it? Would he know to run away?

Would he be able to find someone with a cell phone so he could call Cecil and figure out where he was? That was really the next step.

Carlos hardly knew what he was supposed to do if he arrived at the University alone.

As he walked into the center of campus, he was struck by the silence of the place. Some of the landscaping had come with, and any plant life had already dried up and shriveled under the overbearing sun. It wasn't like it was that much cooler back home—it was still a desert—they just had nights to combat the day. There was shade. There was water.

Here, it felt like everything had burned away in the sun. Carlos made his way into the science building, hopeful that maybe, someone would still be in there who would recognize him. Who would be able to help him out.

Instead, what he met was an entryway full of not the usual mosaic of scientific greats that he was used to, but scattered tiles and blood, viscera hung from broken ceiling lights. A voice, half-familiar, echoed over the PA system, but he couldn't register who it was.

He was pretty sure he saw someone's eyeball smashed against the wall.

“Oh god.” His knees felt weak. He ran out into the courtyard immediately, only making it so far onto the sandy path before his legs failed him and he sunk to the ground. Carlos shook, he clamped his eyes shut. Tried to wipe the image from his mind, and the smell—the godawful stench of rotting flesh.

(He'd done dissections in the past. They were always preserved, they smelled like alcohol, he'd even seen a preserved human cadaver once. His mind started spiraling down wrong paths. He didn't want to think about it—those were scientific, this was different—he couldn't stop thinking about it.)

Carlos sobbed openly in the campus courtyard, on hands and knees, his tears the only water to touch the dry ground. And still, that vision etched into his head. And still, the smell of—he wasn't sure, students? Fellow professors? Human beings— lingering in his nose.

Silent footsteps approached, until he realized through his blurry, tear-smudged glasses that he was looking at a pair of sneakers. Carlos startled, scooting back and away as fast as he could manage, arms raised, ready to defend himself until he realized who he was looking at.

Or...maybe who could have been standing there, if they were still there, with him.

The splatters of blood that covered Avery were absent only on their face, which looked wiped clean with a dry rag, some remnants of red and black still smeared where they hadn't cleaned well enough. The half-smile carved into their face was healing, the fluid dripping from their squeezed shut eye suggested something else wasn't healing at all.

They'd tied their hair back, they'd put on formalwear—probably theater clothing—probably whatever had fit, even though it was bloody anyway. And when Carlos looked up at them, they smiled.

“Dr. C, so good to see you,” Avery greeted in a steadier, smoother voice than he thought he'd ever heard come out of their mouth. “I thought I'd never see you again.”

His own voice shook enough for both of them. “Avery, your... you...”

Carlos wasn't sure what to gesture at. He gestured at all of them, head to toe. Avery reached up and touched their fingertips to the scarring on their cheek, and the smile didn't falter from their face for a moment.

“It's alright, Dr. C. Doesn't even hurt anymore, it's pretty much healed,” they reassured. “Listen, we should get you inside. This University isn't equipped with the necessary tools to help in cases of extreme dehydration—so it's really best to just avoid getting that bad.”

Avery offered a hand to him, and he pulled back further.

“There's—people are dead in there, Avery,” he cried out, “There was blood everywhere! Organs! You can't stay in there— we can't go in there. We need to find Cecil—let me use your phone, Avery. I need to call Cecil.”

They shrugged, stuffed their hands into their pockets, and turned them inside out. “No phone, Dr. C. Mine's been broke for a while, I'm pretty sure most everyone's is by this point.”

His plans were being dashed against the paving stones beneath them. “ What? There has to be a phone somewhere. I need to call Cecil—”

“Look, maybe there is,” Avery replied, talking over him. “But it's not out here, because nobody is out here, Carlos. Nobody except you and I.” They fixed their pockets again, readjusted themself as though they needed to be prepared, look their best with blood-stained lapels. “And honestly, I don't know about you, but I'm getting pretty hot out here.”

Carlos nodded slowly, still watching his assistant like he was staring some clue straight in the eye, that just wasn't clicking with him. Something was wrong, and some part of him knew not to follow Avery into the building. “I don't think I can stand the smell,” he insisted.

Avery sighed. “There are other routes, Carlos. Other destinations. You act as though the whole extent of the University is bathed in blood—look around you. You know that's not true.” They gestured, a grand sweeping gesture around the campus; it was true enough that not a drop of blood had been spilled outside.

Now, looking at each building was like trying to guess what could hide behind closed doors. Maybe the scenes of another murder, maybe the murderer.

His former assistant wasn't the least bit afraid of it.

“Avery,” he began slowly, voice low and level, “Doesn't it bother you that you're covered in blood like that...?”

They looked down at themself, in their ruined suit, as though the thought had never occurred to them. “I'm getting used to it. As long as it isn't on my face—risk of infection, you know.” Again, they gestured to their scarred cheek, but also their closed eye as well.

Carlos frowned, brows furrowed. “What happened to your eye?”

“It was upgraded,” they replied with a bizarre confidence that the term would make sense to him. “I can show you—but indoors. It really hurts to open outside.”

Another attempt to lure him in. Carlos was starting to trust them less.

Again, Avery thrust a hand toward him. “Come on. I'm sure I know where to find someone with a cell phone,” they reassured, as though their earlier denial that anyone had one was simply vanished away into nothing.

“No you don't,” Carlos argued. “You said you didn't.”

They sighed, “Yes, and then, I thought about it. And I do know. Come on.”

As they tried to grab for his hand more forcefully, Carlos slapped them away and stumbled to his feet—it wasn't doing him any good anymore sitting on the ground like a fool, but he wasn't going to follow them into the buildings, either.

Avery's smile hardly broke, only showing the edges of frustration—that was it. That was what he'd been thinking, at the back of his mind. Smiling God .

“Don't touch me,” Carlos hissed through gritted teeth as his former assistant advanced on him, trying to get a hold of him, though it was questionable what they would have done if they could even manage—he was considerably bigger than Avery.

The smile on their face grew strained. “Carlos, Carlos, what's gotten into you? You want to call your boyfriend—I know how you can call your boyfriend—what's this 'don't touch me'?” Avery forced out a laugh; it sounded unnatural. “Why are you acting like this?”

“I'm not playing games with some Smiling God!” Carlos yelled with a volume he didn't know he had in him. “Stop fooling around with me, Avery, I'm a scientist—I'm not falling for it—I'm not falling for any of it!”

He felt his back touch up against something soft, and the horror subsided a moment as a pair of tattooed arms wound around his waist, and then grew as he realized: those weren't Cecil's tattoos .

Avery's expression twisted, the smile gone away instantly. “Kevin, I'm sorry, I—”

“It's alright, Avery,” he reassured, grip tightening around Carlos. “You tried, and that's what matters—and anyway, he's here now , so that's really all I care about.”

If Carlos knew anything, he knew better than to move—the way that Cecil has spoken about this man, he knew he'd more than met his match if Kevin had a hold of him. All he could do was watch, try to hold his ground, listen as his former assistant discussed his fate with their new boss as though he wasn't right there.

“He's here now—if that's all that matters, please don't kill him,” Avery whined, “I know I said I'd make him come willingly, and I tried but—”

Kevin interrupted them with a laugh, “Oh, don't worry, Avery! I'm not going to kill this little scientist if Cecil's out here looking for him.” His grip on Carlos almost felt like a very unwelcome hug.

And now he knew Avery was part of some act, maybe just as unwilling as he was.

“So, you don't have your cell phone, do you?” Kevin asked, and Carlos cringed as he felt something very much like Cecil's tentacles rifling through his pockets, just to make sure. All he'd find in searching would be a couple of granola bars and Carlos' wallet.

(For a moment, Kevin took some amusement in rifling through the scientist's wallet, scoffing and laughing at his loyalty cards to assorted bookstores and science surplus outlets. He pulled out Carlos' drivers license and stuffed it in his own back pocket before tossing the rest of the wallet away, bored of it.)

“He...said he didn't have a phone,” Avery agreed, looking away from the scene with discomfort now obvious on their face. “I'm assuming it might be with Cecil.”

Kevin laughed, “Oh, good! Then I know his number already.”

His grip on Carlos shifted, as he moved to hold the scientist still with a pair of tentacles, his hands now busy pulling out the phone he'd stolen from Dr. Kayali. Kevin skimmed through the contacts list before hitting Carlos' name, and he set the device into speakerphone and waited for the other line to pick up.

Carlos had never hoped more that his boyfriend wouldn't answer a phone call.

It wasn't Cecil's voice that picked up on the other line, though; Dr. Kayali answered the call that came in, with accusation in her voice, “Who the fuck is using my phone?”

“Oh! Sylvia, Sylvia—I can call you Sylvia, right?” Kevin asked, laughter just at the edge of his voice the whole while, “You wouldn't happen to have Cecil there, would you?”

She spat at him, “You two aren't talking to each other. I know your game.”

Kevin chuckled. “Oh, do you? Well, maybe you can deliver him a message, then: I have his scientist! Oh—maybe you want to hear that too? Good thing you picked up!”

“Carlos?” Dr. Kayali's tone shifted, “He's there with you ? Carlos—are you there—can you hear me?” Now louder, she was trying to speak up enough, she hoped Carlos could hear.

He could, but he stayed silent until Kevin held the phone to his face and hissed in his ear, “Say hello to your friends for me, Carlos.”

“Yes—hello, I'm here,” Carlos replied as steadily as he could. “Don't—don't come back though—it's probably a trap—”

Kevin pulled the phone away from him again with a sigh, and switched it off speakerphone fast enough that he couldn't hear Cecil's voice cry out to him on the other line.

“Anyway, he's here, and I'm going to kill him, eat his heart out, you know . All that,” Kevin replied into the phone, to yells from the other end that Carlos could half make out. “I don't know why you find that so surprising, Sylvia! I know, I know, it's probably culture shock or something, but still. I'm going to eat him.”

He pulled the phone back from his ear a moment, pointing at it as if to say to Carlos and Avery both, can you believe this ? Dr. Kayali's yelling was audible, but incoherent.

Finally, Kevin put the phone to his ear again and tried to talk over her, “Listen, listen. I already told you what I want! Just send Cecil over here, and your scientist can live another day—that's all. Promise.”

He interrupted more yelling with a very certain, “I won't eat him, then. But you have to send the radio host. The radio host for the scientist.”

Dr. Kayali's next reply was quiet enough that Carlos couldn't hear it at all, but he knew what she'd said when Kevin replied with a cheerful laugh. “Ah, pleasure doing business with you. I look forward to seeing you all soon, oh, it's been too long. Tell Cecil hi for me!”

Kevin hung up the phone and pocketed it again.

“So. Carlos. I can call you that, right?” He smoothed back the scientist's hair. “Let's go get you all neatened up for your boyfriend. I'm sure he'll be dying to know you're okay.”

Carlos chose now, of course, to begin struggling. He tried to fight his way out of Kevin's grip, though it didn't help very much even to try. “Don't—you can't—don't—hurt—anyone else!” As the tentacles gripped more tightly, he remembered something.

And he bit down.

Hard.

Kevin didn't flinch, nor did he release the scientist, even as Carlos tasted that warm seawater blood flowing into his mouth. He spat into the sand, and Kevin held him still, and laughed at him, “Are you going to try that again?”

A whine escaped Carlos' lips, he couldn't figure out why it didn't work, but damn it—what else was there to even do? He tried again, he tried a different spot, and when Kevin tried to pull him back with a hand instead, he bit the man's pinky finger off.

Thrown to the ground roughly, he hit the sand sputtering and gagging, trying not to choke on the finger stuck in his throat. “You nasty, vile little scientist,” Kevin hissed as he kicked Carlos in the back, enough to dislodge his finger so he coughed it back up instead of swallowing.

He rolled Carlos onto his back and pinned him, a knee pressing down hard on his chest to make sure he wouldn't move. “I did nothing to you—this fight isn't between you and me—you're just a fucking pawn, scientist. But now you've made this fucking personal.”

Carlos clamped his eyes shut as he felt Kevin's nails digging into his shoulders, drawing blood. He tried to knee the man in the groin, tried to shake him off, tried anything he could to get himself free—and then it happened.

In past dissections, he'd heard the sound that came when cracking back a ribcage.

That was the closest thing he could compare it to.

Then, there was nothing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Synopsis:
> 
> Carlos turns up in the desert, realizing that the trip through the Void worked, hooray! He tried to tell Cecil, and quickly realizes he's alone. And Cecil has everything. Including his phone and any water to drink. Defeated, Carlos begins to walk, hoping to find Cecil, or find something.  
> What he does find is the University--the campus is unsettlingly silent, nobody is outside, and all the plants in the landscaping have died under the sunlight. He tries to go into the science building, only to find blood and guts in the front entrance. He stumbles back out into the courtyard, upset, and falls to his knees sobbing over the senselessness of it all.  
> Avery interrupts his sobbing, and initially, he's relieved to see his assistant again, although it becomes quickly apparent that something has changed. Avery's half-smile is pretty much healed, but their robotic eye is still a bit of a mess, and they keep it closed as they talk to Carlos and attempt to convince him to enter the building. They first tell him there aren't any phones around, then try to insist that there are inside, if he just comes in. They tell him to come in out of the heat, come in and avoid dehydration--you name it, they try it.  
> Finally, Carlos realizes that during the entire time they've spoken, Avery hasn't stopped smiling for even a moment. He remembers the Smiling God and tries to flee, yelling at Avery that he's a scientist and won't be fooled so easily--however, he runs into Kevin, who grabs a hold of him.  
> Now that Kevin has captured Carlos, Avery's act falls away, and it becomes apparent that there was some agreement with Kevin that if they could get Carlos to come willingly, he wouldn't be harmed--however, now that it's clear he hasn't come willingly at all, they beg Kevin not to kill him. He agrees that he won't, but only because of Cecil, who he then attempts to contact by calling Carlos' cellphone, which is with Cecil.  
> Dr. Kayali answers, upset that someone is calling from her phone (since Kevin is still using it), and Kevin tells her that he's got "Cecil's scientist", proposing that if they didn't want him to kill and eat Carlos, they had best deliver Cecil to him in exchange: the radio host for the scientist.  
> Cecil and Carlos throughout this exchange are unable to talk to each other at all, while Kevin and Dr. Kayali do the talking. After he hangs up the phone, Carlos finally begins to struggle against him, knowing that he's probably doomed no matter what happens, but not wanting to go down without a fight. He bites Kevin's tentacles several times, but this doesn't anger Kevin as much as when he tries to pull Carlos' mouth away from the tentacles, and Carlos bites off his pinky finger.  
> He throws Carlos to the ground and kicks him until he coughs the finger back up, then pins him and tells him that the fight wasn't about him, calling him nothing but a pawn that he wanted to use to get to Cecil. Now, however, Carlos has made it personal. Kevin digs his nails into Carlos' shoulders, and he clearly has intent to do serious damage.  
> Carlos hears something like cracking bone, though the source is not specified, and he passes out.
> 
>  
> 
> aaand that's...another fun-filled violence chapter! hooray. now we're really cooking.
> 
> as always, comments and kudos are appreciated. <3


	31. Reasoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mx. Mitchell discovers some unnerving texts from Cecil. In the desert otherworld, Cecil attempts to reassure a couple of skittish professors that he really is on their side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Could it be? No...no warnings?
> 
> No warnings! Everyone's happy!

The series of texts read as follows:

[I want to apologize for the way things turned out, Anita.]

[When I set out into a new place, there isn't any manual to advise me. I make a lot of missteps along the way, and sometimes these involve other people's livelihood. I've been thinking about my segment on your show, and I think that may have been one of those mistakes. It's extremely important, of course, to report on everything that's been happening.]

[I just feel you would make a better narrator for the lives of your listeners. They know you. They feel an attachment toward you. Most importantly, they trust you to tell them the truth, as if anything could ever be fully certain.]

[I've been thinking about how to express this to you. Carlos and I are going away, to seek out those who were lost. And I won't be around anyway, so.]

[I think it's for the best that you continue your reports on your own.]

[Don't be afraid to call me for advice.]

[Good luck, Anita.]

[And goodbye.]

Mx. Mitchell read the messages, and read them again. And again.

She hadn't really been paying attention to her phone, when the messages had been sent. It was still early, she was in the middle of new intern orientation, there were more important things than her phone buzzing in her back pocket.

The table in the break room was a mess of newspapers and magazines; one intern she'd taken on was entirely responsible for gathering information, now. Nothing was coming in with candid interviews of rising stars, nobody cared what the mayor was doing with what money, and it was out of the question to be concerned about foreign affairs.

Topics to report on ranged from the continued scarcity of wheat and wheat by-products (often replaced by snakes) to a new stranger who had come into town with a deerskin briefcase. What was in the briefcase? What did the man look like? Nobody was sure.

Still, news to report on. A faceless newcomer. A Void that had swallowed an entire university, perhaps had swallowed that scientist and Cecil Palmer along with it.

Station Management was bearing down on them with each passing day, a foreboding presence of shrieks and moans hidden behind a solid door. The air felt thick.

Mx. Mitchell wanted to text Cecil back. How the hell was anyone supposed to cope with the mess he left behind?

She suddenly felt rather bad for the town he'd come from. Night Vale, he'd called it.

But he'd called their town Night Vale, too.

 

* * *

 

“You have to give me to him, Sylvia. You have no other choice!”

Cecil had behaved himself at the encampment until that phone call came through on Carlos' phone. They were in Doug and Alicia's tent, and Dr. Kayali had bound up his hands to make sure he didn't get into any mischief, and when the phone started ringing in his bag, she was the one who rushed over to answer it.

He couldn't help but think that if he'd had the opportunity to talk to Kevin, maybe things could have gone differently. But then, Kevin was demanding him in exchange for Carlos, and Dr. Kayali had agreed to it, and Cecil insisted that she do it—but once she was off the phone, the story had already changed.

“She already said we aren't giving you to him,” Theo snapped. “Begging isn't going to change anything.”

Dr. Kayali nodded agreement, murmuring mostly to herself, “That would be too convenient to work. Give away someone we don't want, get someone we do want in exchange... no. There's something else afoot here, he's planning something—Cecil.” She turned to face him. “Who is Kevin? You look so... alike. What are you, to each other?”

The hesitation to his answer was obvious. “We used to be friends,” he replied vaguely. “That's all...we used to be... friends.”

Theo quirked an eyebrow. “Look almost more like brothers, to me.”

Their remark was allowed to dominate the conversation only for a moment, before Dr. Kayali began to speak again. “Anyway, if he wants you that badly—if he was really, truly a threat to you, Cecil—why would you want to go with him? You must think I'm a fool to not see that you two are planning something.”

“I understand why you would think that, Sylvia, and I'm sorry to have to say this, but you're wrong,” Cecil replied, fidgeting with the fabric that bound his hands. “I'm not planning anything—I actually have no plans at all! That's... really sort of why I'm in this mess, and Carlos isn't by my side, and honestly—I just want to see him safe again, Sylvia. That's all I want.”

She frowned, “You really do think I'm clueless. You barely know each other—”

“That doesn't matter !” Cecil interrupted, and carried on, impassioned, “I love him—we love each other! I just want to see him safe , Sylvia, I don't care if we've only known each other a short time—I've—I've never met anyone like him before. Oh, he's wonderful , and I—I made a mess of all of it. Ohh, I messed up, Sylvia. I blew it. ”

The professors watched him as he cried out his passionate love for Carlos, and then he let himself fall over into the sand, staring up at the cloth ceiling of the tent, arms still bound behind his back. Theo cleared their throat to break the silence.

“...would you act like an adult for a moment here?” Dr. Kayali complained. “Please, this isn't high school, stop acting like you're some prepubescent kid with a crush. It's not cute.”

Cecil whined, and tried to push himself up again, though he couldn't. “I'm sorry.”

Dr. Kayali shook her head and replied, “I don't believe you are. If you were sorry, you would stop trying to pull this... whatever you're trying to accomplish right now, and be honest with me—what are you and Kevin hoping to accomplish?”

“I told you, I'm not trying to do anything with Kevin,” he insisted, struggling to try and sit up. “I wanted—Carlos and I wanted—you can't go to war against him. I know how you must think that sounds, but I can't promise you that he hasn't brought the entire University onto his side by now—I should know...I should know firsthand what an influence like that can do.”

She watched him a moment, and gestured for Theo to help him up, unsheathing her weapon again to keep it trained on him. Just in case.

Theo lifted Cecil back into a seated position, and he muttered a quiet thanks to them before they took their place by Dr. Kayali once again. They said nothing to Cecil, and didn't really look at him—enough about this whole influence thing was rather unnerving.

“So. You're implying that your friend could... brainwash the entire University?” she asked. “And this is what you believe has happened, right?”

Cecil nodded, and then a little more to try and readjust the position of his glasses on his face. “...I have no reason to believe otherwise,” he agreed. “He's behaved similarly every time he's gotten a hold of any people to turn into his... whatever he calls them.”

Dr. Kayali quirked an eyebrow. “And he's done this how many times?”

All he could do was admit, defeated, that he hadn't kept track. “It's been... so long, I don't remember. I almost don't remember anything ever being... different. Before that foul, foul Smiling God of his came around and—”

She interrupted, “I've heard this Smiling God business. Explain yourself—what is it?”

Cecil was quiet for several moments as he tried to compose his thoughts into words, a task that had grown considerably harder since he'd come into this otherworld. Harder to think. To see what he was supposed to say next. His third eye, still clamped shut, had been wrapped behind a thick blindfold—partially on his request, and partially the paranoia of his captors.

He had no way of telling what he might have seen if he opened it, and wanted no such risk. A blinding light, perhaps, some mirage of the same sort that Kevin had seen.

Finally, Cecil answered her after what felt like forever, “A parasite, in a sense. It lives in this realm and... I don't believe it can live without some kind of host. I don't know where it came from, as far as I know, nobody has ever found out. All I know... all we know, Kevin and I both, is likely as much as anyone knows about it—most people who cross paths with the Smiling God do not live to share their knowledge.”

“And what makes you different?” she asked sharply.

For a moment, he just watched her with a frown on his face. Cecil weighed his options heavily before he replied, “As far as I'm aware, Sylvia, I'm very difficult to kill—maybe impossible? I don't know.” Cecil's shoulders sank. “Maybe it's actually very easy, only, I don't think anyone has ever tried. But—we've been around so long, the both of us.”

“...and nobody has killed him either, then,” Theo concluded.

“Nobody has ever killed him,” Cecil agreed. “So you see, if you go in expecting that you're going to be able to simply defeat—”

Dr. Kayali interrupted him again, “Excuse me, but before you start telling us not to fight back, are you trying to suggest that we can't do anything about this? Those are our people, Cecil—and I know they don't matter to you, but they matter to us . We can't just leave them.”

He shook his head and corrected, “That wasn't what I was suggesting at all. If I truly believed that there was nothing that could be done, Sylvia, do you believe I would have come here to begin with? Being here, if this was pointless, would give me nothing except the risk that I may someday find myself host to a Smiling God as well—and with the Void already speaking through me, I don't know what that would result in.”

They both chose to ignore his statement about the Void, and Theo was the first to ask him, “So why are you here now?”

Cecil stared down at his knees, words caught in his throat and struggling their way out. He answered, “I believe I might be able to reason with him, better than anyone else could.”

Dr. Kayali scoffed, “And why would you suddenly decide after all these years, as you've said yourself it's been a very long time—why reason with him suddenly?”

“Carlos cares about you all,” he replied. “And... I think that makes it worth trying.”

A silence followed, as it had the first time he'd brought up Carlos. He looked from face to face, certain that they'd somehow both decided to stop listening to him at that moment.

It was no small surprise when Dr. Kayali let out a quiet chuckle and remarked, “Wow. Are you really here because of Carlos? Be honest with me.”

Cecil nodded resolutely and insisted, “It was both of our idea to come here—to ensure that you were all alright. He wouldn't let me leave without him, or I would have—I was afraid that something bad could happen and...” he trailed off with a sigh, all resoluteness now lost from his voice. “I lost him while we were going through the Void. I've... felt others pass through and I knew it was connected, but I've never done it, myself. I thought it would be easier.”

They watched him as he continued to talk about Carlos, the interior of the tent feeling more saturated by the moment by some near-tangible feeling of Cecil's effusive love. “I want to help you all, I really do—but you need to work with me, and you need to trust me, so I can go—and I can help Carlos. I don't know what I would do if something happened to him—I—I know, this must sound so odd, because it hasn't been very long but I've really never felt this way before. About anyone. And it's been so many years, and I've met so many scientists, and yet. Carlos is just... perfect. Perfect, and wonderful, and... oh, I'm...I'm talking too much, aren't I?”

Neither professor answered him immediately, a similar hazy look on both of their faces, although Dr. Kayali snapped back out of it first.

“...Okay, that was weird. What was that?” she asked, rubbing at her eyes, trying to bring herself back around completely. Next to her, Theo began to do the same on a slight delay.

Cecil cracked a nervous smile, “My influence, I'm sorry I... forget sometimes.”

Dr. Kayali eyed him a little funny. “That was your influence? I thought that was a mind-control thing. That felt more like... I don't know.”

“It's a feeling,” Cecil clarified. “Used correctly, it can influence people's choices. But sometimes I forget, and I just get... excited . And I think people can feel that.”

Theo snorted. “You really are that enamored of this Carlos then, aren't you?”

He nodded, but said nothing, and watched them for some verdict on the situation.

Dr. Kayali finally conceded. “Very well. If you think you can reason with him... then we'll help get you to the University.”

“Oh, thank you.” Cecil cracked a small smile. “Now...do you think I could stop pretending like I didn't untie myself twenty minutes ago?” he asked.

They both watched, dumbfounded, as Cecil pulled his hands around to rest comfortably in his lap, the strip of fabric that he'd been bound with tied around one wrist like a bow instead. Which meant he'd been free to do whatever he wanted to, since he'd untied himself. Dr. Kayali boggled at this and asked him, “Why didn't you try something sooner?”

Cecil shrugged, “Oh, that? I wanted to gain your trust first.”

He untied the bow and wrapped it over the top of his blindfold, covering his third eye in another layer of fabric, just for extra security. “So, I think that we should probably head toward the University as a unit—but when we get close enough, you need to let me approach on my own, so that Kevin doesn't think that we're attempting to trick him,” he explained as he reached over to rummage through his bag for something.

“And what are you planning to do, once you get in there?” Theo asked. “From what I saw, he didn't seem like the sort of person you can really... reason with.”

Dr. Kayali quietly nodded her agreement, watching as Cecil pulled one small velvet pouch from his bag, and then another that looked far older, worn out, and perhaps never replaced over however many years.

He opened the pouch and peered inside, the bloodstones clicking together as the fabric moved in his hand. “I was hoping I could appeal to him with something familiar. I know that I cannot possibly expect you to believe me, but I think that there must be something left of him aside from the Smiling God, or he wouldn't be trying to contact me anymore.”

“What's in there?” Dr. Kayali asked, moving over a little closer. He held open the bag so she could look inside; it wasn't a very impressive sight, and the inner lining of the bag was beginning to degrade, but he told her what the bloodstones were. At least the very basics. It didn't need to turn into an informational session; it wasn't really as important what they were, as whose they were.

“Kevin left these behind when he came here. I don't know if he even remembers how to use them, or any of the rituals we ever carried out, but I'm... hoping he does,” Cecil explained. “For all of our sakes, really.”

Theo asked, “And what if...this doesn't work? What if you can't get through to him?”

Cecil didn't answer at first, but at additional prodding he replied, “I suppose then I have to determine whether we really are immortal.”

Neither had to ask what that meant.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm sorry I totally dropped the ball on updating. I might be dropping the ball again. I've been having some great medical fun lately.
> 
> At any rate, I'm here with a peace offering: while I wasn't so great for writing this past week, I still managed to put together a playlist for the story. Wowee.
> 
> Actually, the first of two playlists, presumably.
> 
> I present to you, the Desert Bluffs half of the music: http://8tracks.com/das-moot/a-town-called-nevers
> 
> At any rate, I hope this chapter was interesting and worth a bit of a wait. If you enjoyed it, I always appreciate comments!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	32. So Far from Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Avery and Rachelle work out a plan together. Elsewhere in the desert, Cecil thinks back on his past with Kevin. A proper flashback actually happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First section: minor warning for misgendering, though it's dealt with within the chapter.
> 
> Second section: there's some blood, it's mostly along the lines of Night Vale ritual weirdness though. also, vomiting.
> 
> I'll write a synopsis for this chapter if anyone asks me to, just let me know.

Avery had cleaned up their broadcasting booth for a second time, though in memory of the blood spilled in that room, they still startled at any sound that could have spelled violence.

The script laid out on their desk was carefully lined up, neatly handwritten pages stacked carefully, bottom edge of the papers lined up perfectly with the edge of the desk. Avery picked it up and evened out the papers again, and set them down.

Time didn't seem to work here, they'd figured out that much—perhaps the whole lot of them, all the students and professors in the University, were living the same moment of their life endlessly. The sun hadn't set, nor even moved in the sky to suggest the passage of a day since they'd arrived in this desert hellscape.

Yet Avery couldn't quite reconcile with that conception of time. The wounds on their face were healing, well, the half-smile on their cheek was healing. An ache still weighed down their eyelid over the strange robotic organ that Kevin had given to them. Underneath a dull haze of pain medication, they could emote like their face wasn't splitting open.

Opening that eye wasn't worth it, anyway. The light leaks were too extreme; as advanced as the technology seemed in concept, the actual eyeball was apparently quite old.

Again, time was weird. But it was time they were waiting for as they watched the stack of papers and the cellphone sitting inactive on their desk, as though they would receive a call at any moment to finally set them into action.

The radio broadcast had to wait—they knew that much.

Avery tapped at the screen of the phone, and called up Dr. Kayali's lock screen, and a pair of faces grinning back from the casual sort of home setting they'd never seen their professor in before. Avery had seen Dr. Kayali's sister once or twice on campus, but they wondered what the woman thought of her absence. If she noticed, if she'd called asking questions, if she'd gotten Kevin on the other line instead.

They knew well enough that Kevin had been telling anyone who called that the phone's original owner was dead. When he was alone with Avery, he bragged about it.

He bragged about a lot of things that made Avery's insides squirm. The redecoration around campus, like a proud conquest over innocent students whose organs lined the halls. Kevin was a hunter admiring his own kills. Avery could only clean so much.

Dr. Kayali's phone sat silent on the desk, and refused to ring. Refused to give them the signal they'd been told to be prepared for, the permission to start their radio show.

A knock at the door startled them to their feet. Avery kept a weapon at hand now.

Brandishing the knife, they called out in their strongest voice, “Come in.”

Rachelle pushed the door open carefully. “You can lower your weapon, Avery. I'm only here to check on any... updates. Have you heard anything yet?” she asked, waiting until Avery had lowered their small knife before she stepped into the room.

They sighed, casting a glance toward the phone. “No. Nobody's called—I'm just keeping an eye on it. Only got one good one, right?” Avery tried to laugh, but neither of them were laughing; both of them were on edge.

“...I know, I'm not sure if they're going to withdraw either. It— is pretty risky, surrendering the double,” Rachelle replied, tone still serious. “I wouldn't be surprised if he changed his mind, himself.”

“Does he really have a choice in the matter?” Avery asked, feeling that the question was wrong even as it left their mouth.

Rachelle's answer agreed with their own concerns. “Do you suppose you could force Kevin to hand himself over? If they're as similar as we've been led to believe... well, you're a smart girl. I don't think I need to say—”

Avery held up a hand to interrupt her. “I'm not. A girl, I mean—stop... calling me that.”

For a moment, Rachelle processed the information, and then asked simply, “What should I call you, then?”

“Avery. Or, well, I'm a radio host. You could call me anything like that,” they answered. Avery watched the professor's face, waiting for some kind of backlash or something. It was still... uncertain, talking to her. Like the Smiling God had knocked something loose.

They had known her long enough before everything went to shit, she should have had their pronouns right by now.

“Ah, sorry,” she replied, and corrected herself, “You're a smart radio host, Avery. I think you and I both know that if their prisoner is anything like Kevin—...well, it would complicate things. That's all. It would complicate things.”

A sigh. Avery knew she was right. So they checked the phone again, and no messages had arrived in the minutes that Rachelle had been in the room. “I hope they call if anything changes, then. If he changes his mind.”

Rachelle replied too readily, “Maybe he'll turn them into decorations, and they won't be able to call to tell us anything. Maybe... maybe! It's already happened. And we'll never—”

“Please don't talk about that,” Avery interrupted. “Tell me about our own prisoner—how is he? Is he responsive?”

She hesitated before admitting that he wasn't. “The injuries—we're both scientists, here, Avery. I can be honest with you, I don't know what to expect, even with wounds like that. We can only hope that... everything works out.”

“And you've left Kevin and Carlos alone, then?” they asked.

Rachelle nodded. “He's watching the captive.”

Both of them were silent then, and Avery sat back down at their desk again, looking over the sound equipment. They'd scarcely tested to make sure it was going to work, after the damage that Rachelle had done to the system, bashing the speakers against Kevin's head. But she'd helped organize a cluster of students who she promised knew what they were doing.

It was patched up well enough, and the blood was mostly cleaned off. Avery reached up to tap at the microphone, though it was turned off and supplied no satisfying thunk to let them know that it was functioning.

“If you don't receive a call, give it a few hours,” Rachelle advised. “If, by then, you haven't received a call—I'd say begin the broadcast, anyway. They might not call, if they're only going to do what they said they would. And we need to be organized if they do arrive.”

Avery nodded, peering down at their script again. “...I'll go with my gut. If it feels like too long, I'll just start the broadcast.”

“Of course.”

* * *

It had been years since Kevin last laid his hands on a single bloodstone, and something about that absence had Cecil hoping that the return might snap him back to his senses. Like an old friend, in a way he wasn't sure he wanted to consider himself an old friend to Kevin, anymore. He cradled the pouch in his hands like a treasure as they marched through the desert, because it was the last thing of Kevin's that he still owned.

To some degree, it was superstition—it wasn't right to dispose of bloodstones. They were buried, when somebody died. He didn't remember watching his mother lowered into the dirt with her own set, but he knew it had probably happened, in that same way that he knew she had probably loved him as a child.

Cecil switched topics when his family came up in conversation.

His sister was a sweetheart, when she wanted to be; Abby had married that rotten Steve Carlsberg, though. She'd made her choice, they couldn't always see eye to eye on everything, but Cecil loved her to whatever degree was proper. Until he'd left Night Vale—the Night Vale she was still living in—he visited her from time to time, and babysat his niece Janice.

Abby never called him now that he was traveling. He couldn't remember how long ago he'd last seen her, or what version of Night Vale she'd been, only that much of it blended together, and her number was still on his contacts list.

They'd always been a little distant. She wasn't nearly his age, and so much of that precious childhood they'd never really gotten to share together, he'd shared with the brother whose cheerful voice brought up bile in the back of his throat.

“Cecil, hey, can you put that dumb radio away for a minute?”

The door had slammed open while he was recording; Cecil cringed and clicked the tape recorder off. “That was my last tape, Kevin, what ?” he snapped, pulling the cassette out to turn it over in his hands. Well, now it was junked—he couldn't send a botched tape in to Leonard Burton if he actually wanted that internship.

Kevin sunk into the shag rug across from him, mischief in his eyes and a smirk on his face. “Forget your stupid tapes. You sound like a kid anyway—”

“Stop,” Cecil snapped, pulling his tape recorder away as Kevin reached out to touch it. “ You sound like a kid, not me. What do you want? You owe me like three cassettes now.”

He held out his hand and Cecil dropped the ruined tape into it. Kevin gutted it as he spoke, spooling the ribbon around his fingertips, “I'll give you your stupid cassettes later. You're really boring since you got that radio thing, anyway.”

Cecil couldn't help but cringe as his twin hooked the end of the tape between his teeth and pulled it out further. It was already ruined, but Kevin honestly enjoyed stripping the tapes too much for it to be an accident after he'd done it twice before.

“I said what do you want? And I'm not boring,” Cecil replied defensively.

Kevin rolled onto his back to look up at him, the closest thing to a mirror either of them would ever have. Cecil was letting his hair grow out, fifteen years was long enough being mistaken for each other. They were the spitting image, of course. The same jawline, the same dark eyes, the same too-narrow shoulders; Cecil often said he was just a little bit taller. Just an inch or something, maybe. Kevin got to claim he was a few hours older.

“You're boring,” he insisted, picking plastic from between his teeth. “Even Earl thinks so—don't go ask him, he told me he'd say he didn't, if you asked. But I know he thinks you're boring. He did tell me. Like last night.”

He sighed. “Nobody came over last night. You're a really bad liar.”

A grin spread across Kevin's face, “No, I snuck out.”

“With Earl ?” Cecil asked, hurt creeping into his voice before he realized—“Hey, you were in bed last night! I saw you in here when I came in. And why would Earl even sneak out with you anyway? You're annoying.”

Kevin quirked an eyebrow. “But I'm not boring—and he thinks I'm cute .”

“That's because he thinks I'm cute!” Cecil snapped. “It's got nothing to do with you.” He felt his cheeks growing hot, embarrassing as it was that Kevin knew how to push his buttons.

“But don't you even wanna know how I did it, Ceec?” he teased, reaching out to drop the shredded tape into his brother's lap. Cecil chucked the ball of tattered plastic across the room and picked up his tape recorder to move away.

Cecil made his way to the desk they shared between the two of them; he did at least have a drawer he could lock, and a key he could keep Kevin from getting his hands on. He unlocked it to put the tape recorder away, and muttered his reply moodily over the pile of junk stowed away in the one private place he had to his name. “You're just making up stories, nobody can be in two places at once. You were in bed.”

He sat back up and watched Cecil stuff the tape recorder into his already crowded drawer and lock it. “Earl helped me set up a decoy,” he explained.

“It was breathing ,” Cecil pointed out.

Kevin just laughed, “It's not like I stuck a pillow under the sheets to pretend it was me, he used his bloodstones. It was like a doppelganger thing, it vanished soon as I touched it, I can show you how to make one.”

Cecil snorted, “Why should I want a doppelganger? I've already got one stupid double staring back at me and he's right there.” He pointed both fingers accusingly in Kevin's direction, and his brother gasped and pressed his hands to his chest in feigned shock.

“Me? I'm the stupid double?” Kevin hung his head in shame. “What about Earl, though? What should I tell him tonight?”

Cecil hesitated. “Tell him about what?”

“Wow, and I'm the dumb twin?” Kevin burst out with blatantly insincere laughter, rolling back over into the carpeting. “Tell him about what! Do you see the look on your face? What do you think?”

He scowled. “Come on Kev shut up. Tell Earl about what?”

Kevin's laughter cut off as abruptly as it had started. “That you won't sneak out with him tonight, okay? I thought he wanted to hang out with me last night, too. Got me outside and started trying to ask me how to get you out and I said you needed cover.” He shrugged, sitting up once again, his moment of faux-hysterics now over.

Cecil wasn't sure what to think. He watched his brother's face try to mirror the look of concern on his own, but Kevin couldn't quite pin it down. He always had a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, that he couldn't get rid of entirely.

From what Cecil could tell, he seemed sincere enough—it had gotten harder, not playing games with each other since Cecil had figured out his influence, and Kevin shortly after. It turned into a game of mind tricks, fighting over servings at dinner, Kevin apologizing and offering the biggest slice of cake to Cecil, Cecil stumbling over his words as he tried to give Kevin an extra helping of rice and beans. Their mother couldn't even sit at the table with them playing games with each other. She hid in the living room and hissed from the doorway.

“You're not messing with me, are you...?” he asked, adjusting his glasses as if that would give him a clearer view of Kevin's motives. It really didn't, but Kevin pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose out of habit.

“I'm not messing with you,” he reassured. “Look, I—I thought Earl wanted to see me , I mean, that's weird, right? He's like your best friend, and I don't have one, but he just said he wanted me to show you this weird thing so you could sneak out and go hang out with him.”

He paused. “But... tonight ? I don't know, Leonard Burton's show is on tonight and—”

“See, you're boring,” Kevin groaned. “Leonard Burton and that stupid recorder and all your cassettes and you've been obsessed with that radio for two months now! You don't even want to talk, or hang out, or anything, not with me, not with anyone.”

Cecil hissed through gritted teeth, “Fine. I'll sneak out with you guys. Just shut up, Kev.”

Kevin's face brightened at the surrender. “Oh, really? Wonderful! Alright. Get your bloodstones. Let's do this. I'll show you how it's done, then it'll be easy tonight.”

Having only just locked it, Cecil unlocked his desk drawer again and dug out the pristine pouch of bloodstones he called his own. He prided himself on keeping them like new, though he'd done enough rituals to know the basic routine like the back of his hand.

“Get mine out too?” Kevin asked, gesturing to the lower drawer. His lock was broken. Cecil pulled out the stained velvet sack and tossed it over to Kevin, who barely managed to catch them and cursed Cecil out for throwing so carelessly. Whether or not he polished those things up pretty, the last thing he needed was to break any.

Cecil shoved both drawers shut, and locked his own before stringing the key around his neck again. “We should probably do this outside or something,” he suggested, nervous of what might happen if their mother walked in on them performing bloodstone rituals for fun.

(She would hiss at them and curse the day they were born. She did a lot of that anyway, though, so it wasn't really any different from usual.)

Kevin got up off the floor, eager to get going. “Come on then. You've got your knife, right? We'll do it in the basement, that's off-limits anyway.”

He cringed but didn't argue, knowing well enough that Kevin was just going to start calling him boring again if he refused to venture down into the basement; Kevin led the way out of their bedroom, and Cecil followed after him, a bad feeling tugging at the back of his mind like this couldn't possibly end well.

The Palmer family basement was a mess, in the fullest sense of the word. As a little boy, it had always reminded Cecil of what might have happened if the house was much bigger, and then somebody crushed it into a small space. There were boxes that nobody had touched in years, and furniture covered in tarps and piles of old clothes and toys that neither of them had touched since they started high school.

Kevin turned on the basement lights and helped navigate toward a clear enough space among the clutter that they could both sit down in. The floor was cold, cement, sucking the warmth from Cecil when he sat down across from his twin.

Delicately, Kevin started to pull his own bloodstones from their pouch and lay them out; not wanting to look unwilling, Cecil began to do the same, mimicking his brother's movements in the practiced way they'd learned to do it. They made a perfect mirror of each other, falling into sync, opposite motion meeting opposite.

The first to slide his knife from his pocket was Kevin, it was nothing but a pocket knife, but he'd never really cared about looking professional in front of the Void. Cecil mirrored his action, but instead produced a small ceremonial dagger from the underneath of his boot, where he'd tucked it away before. The hiding place was met with no small sign of approval from Kevin, who looked far more impressed than maybe he should have been.

“I didn't know you finished that thing,” he remarked.

Cecil nodded. “Of course I did. You never know when you'll need—” he began to explain, but when he stuck his foot out of the bloodstone circle to show the boot to his brother, Kevin shoved it back.

“You're supposed to be the professional here, mister Voice of Night Vale ,” Kevin mocked, “Keep hands and feet inside the ride.”

He rolled his eyes but didn't say anything about it; Kevin was right. That had been careless. “Okay, so, what are we doing now?” he asked. “What's the first step?”

With that, Kevin started into the process, showing Cecil each step along the way, though he kept up an even pace and didn't slow down as he went along. Cecil was always a couple of steps behind, and trying to mimic the pattern his brother activated the bloodstones in, only coming out mirrored.

Most of the rituals they'd done together had worked fine in either direction, as long as the stones were laid out appropriately; Cecil wasn't sure at what point he realized that something was very wrong. As he carved line after line into his palms and dripped fresh, red blood over the runes carved into the bloodstones, Cecil's grip on the knife shook.

He couldn't dare to admit any weakness in his resolve as he kept going, so he steeled his will and tried to steady his hands. The ritual was near to finished when he heard Kevin drop his knife in surprise.

“Ceec? Hey, what are you doing?” he asked, voice suddenly thick with worry. From his own bloodstone circle, a second version of himself rose up, looking vacant and puppeteered. Cecil tried to look around for his own double.

Nothing present, he pushed forward through the last few steps, and he was fairly sure later that he had winked out of existence for a while. But it was just another sort of death, and death wasn't anymore permanent in Night Vale than mayoral approval ratings.

The room cut away into spots with the ritual finished; reversed from Kevin's doppelganger trick, he wasn't sure if he'd made one less Cecil in the world rather than one more. He couldn't hear his twin's concern anymore, nor anything else that felt like anyone else but himself. Himself, echoing words in his own ears, echoing thoughts in his head.

He couldn't have called it unpleasant if he wanted to. Drifting through the Void felt like dreaming, his thoughts arranged like constellations and then scattered like shooting stars. Light leaks punched into the black tarp of a whole grand unknown universe, he could have described in that moment the condition of nothing that he grappled with for years after.

How could anyone describe being nothing? The words alone constituted too much of a thing to describe it adequately. The Void swallowed any sound as he tried to call out for his brother. “Kevin? Are you in here?”

Cecil realized his voice had gone, only moments after he'd tried using it. Briefly, he reflected that his body had gone with it, but couldn't organize himself into molecules again, within the endless expanse of nothing that floated around him.

In a way, he'd never felt so at peace in his life.

The Void spit him into his bedroom several days later, and while Cecil stumbled forward and fell to his knees on the thick plush of the carpet, he watched somebody else asleep in his bed, who didn't look quite like him anymore.

He doubled forward, sputtering, and swore that he vomited the entire Void on their bedroom floor, a thick black slime like seawater dribbling down his chin as he rolled onto his back to stare up at the pitch black of the ceiling.  His entire body felt on fire; every inch of his skin ached.

Kevin didn't stir, and neither did the double who had taken Cecil's place in his absence.

If he looked back, Cecil could have kept track of the very moment that everything went wrong, from that moment and onward.

In the morning, Kevin had found him collapsed on the floor and unconscious. The wounds that covered his body healed into black scars and drifted over his skin like tattoos, like they'd been put there on purpose. The blood loss alone could have wiped his mind of the incident altogether, and he may have never remembered but for three things that followed.

1\. From that point onward, whenever Cecil wounded himself, his blood came out black like a squid's ink.

2\. He still practiced on his tape recorder, only now he could scarcely ignore the static whenever he spoke into the microphone. It buzzed not only in his ears, but flickered at the edge of his vision. He would record with his eyes closed for the next several months.

3\. Perhaps most importantly, Kevin saw what he had done.

And he wanted to do it, too.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so that was a ride. and there we have it. a lot of the mythos in this AU, so to speak, is sort of hinging on the peculiar dynamic between Cecil and Kevin that I'm hoping to flesh out a little better in the coming chapters. I also can't believe I've now passed 90k with no inclination of stopping; I've only written one story before that surpassed 100k, and this is going to probably end up overshadowing it someday.
> 
> I hope that chapter was worth it for you guys. I've got big plans. and we'll see what's up with everyone in the present day again soon. and Carlos, yes, perfect Carlos. we'll see what happened to him soon too.
> 
> as always, comments and kudos are appreciated. hell, tell your friends, spread my story around, I'm uncontrollable, I'll be writing forever.
> 
> thanks for reading!


	33. Black Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Avery checks in on Carlos and Kevin, after their fight. A bit of backstory continues from the previous chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's your handy dandy guide to how fucked up this chapter is!
> 
> First section: blood and gore and some intense violence involving some makeshift weaponry. 
> 
> Second section: all clear. just pursue that horizontal rule and you'll be safe on the other side of it.
> 
> synopsis to follow will only cover the first half of the chapter, since the second half isn't nasty.

In a former life, the room had served as a student chemistry lab.

Carlos knew the location of every chemical in the locked cabinets that lined the back wall, and what every knob on the fume hood activated. He could have carried out chemical reactions in his sleep, the ones he performed in front of every introductory chemistry student. He could have counted every block of dry ice he'd spent on the first days of class, each bottle of copper sulfate he used up on demonstrations, and all the beakers his students had dropped.

The pale teal tile wasn't clean anymore, blood seeped into the grout that wouldn't ever be washed away well enough. Black like squid's ink, Kevin's blood dried into Rorschach blotches on the floor and coagulated in a thicker, sticky film on the tabletop they'd laid him out on, unconscious and prone.

Avery's voice was quiet with a sort of respect when they broke the silence in the room. “It's still bothering you, isn't it?”

“It... yeah,” Carlos murmured, watching the unconscious man's chest raise and lower with each breath. “He does look... incredibly like Cecil.”

The pair lapsed into silence again. Carlos sat in the chair he'd always taught from, with Avery seated on the tabletop they'd watched so many demonstrations on, but it wasn't the same room anymore, it was barely the same University, and they weren't the same people.

Avery hadn't changed out of their suit completely, but pulled off the jacket, stripped down to just a stained white buttonup shirt, and black pants that didn't show the stains as easily. Carlos kept his lab coat on. Both of them had more of Kevin's blood on them than anything recognizably human.

“And... Rachelle's keeping tabs on the phone and everything?” Carlos asked at length.

They nodded. “Yeah. Still no calls... and no answers.”

“You're still trying to call? Both our phones?” he asked.

Avery nodded, but said nothing after that.

When Kevin had grabbed him before, Carlos hardly got the chance to comprehend what was happening—he thought he'd reacted in the situation as well as he could, at the time. But fighting back against Kevin hadn't been the same as biting Cecil—one attack fixed nothing, and repeated strikes only drove Kevin to violence against him.

He'd gone down, dizzy and sputtering on that seawater blood in his mouth, and the last thing he remembered was Kevin cracking one of his ribs, and a feeling like the Void sucking him back in. Then he passed out.

Carlos woke to Rachelle trying to treat his wounds; he was only half-sure she even recognized him when he called out her name in a shaky voice and tried to ask what happened.

Avery had responded first, the moment Kevin pinned him; neither had been watching the radio host bolt when they broke into fighting each other, and Kevin hadn't seen Avery hide their weapon before advancing on Carlos earlier.

“Get off him!” Their voice came out stronger than they could have hoped as they raised the nail gun, approaching Kevin again in careful steps.

Kevin stopped what he was doing, pushing himself to his feet. “You're... really going to betray me, Avery? After everything I've done for you?” His voice held more caution than Avery had heard him use before; coming up against Kevin with a ranged weapon, they hoped it would make some difference. The safety was disabled, but Avery's hands shook.

“You said you wouldn't hurt Carlos—” they began. Kevin jolted forward. Avery stumbled back and pulled the trigger. Poor planning. The nail gun, far from the weapon they'd seen in cheesy movies, fired at Kevin but barely got stuck in his shirt.

He shot out a hand to grab Avery, and he laughed. “Put that thing down, you'll hurt somebody!” The first attack had been enough proof that Avery couldn't defend anyone with an improvised weapon. Kevin grabbed for the tool so he could get it out of the way.

The next shot fired through the palm of his hand. Kevin startled, surprised that they'd actually done it, and lashed out to slap the weapon away. “Put it down !”

In that instant, Avery saw two ways out. Drop the weapon and beg, or push forward.

Avery held the trigger down.

Before the nail gun had even made contact with Kevin's chest, Avery was terrified they'd half spent their ammunition. But they pushed forward. They held the trigger. They emptied every last nail around where they hoped he had a heart.

Kevin stumbled and fell to his knees, and somehow above any sign of pain or anger, he mostly looked surprised. “Y-you...bastard...” he trailed off, doubling over to clutch his chest for the moments before he lost consciousness.

They dropped the nail gun the moment he went down.

It had been Rachelle's suggestion that Kevin was probably still alive, after Avery had dragged Carlos in for medical attention. They didn't venture out alone to make sure, but with the small cluster of students that had answered their radio call, Avery rolled him onto his back, and he had still been breathing.

Avery stayed out of the room while Carlos helped pry the nails from his chest and stripped his shirt to examine the wound. Rachelle finished bandaging him, when Carlos left the room in tears. And he'd been impossible to pry from Kevin's side, since.

Some part of Avery wished they could understand what was going through their professor's head. They'd seen with their own eye that he'd been at Kevin's mercy, and they'd seen Kevin's mercy toward students, already. It was the sort of mercy that involved bleeding.

“I just don't think it's right, killing him.” Carlos kept arguing the same point.

No amount of fact would change it. The people he'd killed, the people he'd tortured. Carlos shook off accusations and swore that Cecil would fix it once he arrived.

And he would be arriving.

He had to be on his way.

Carlos startled when he heard Kevin let out a groan, and hopped to his feet. “Kevin?”

“Don't go too close,” Avery warned, hand lowering to grope the table they were sitting on for any suitable weapons. They cursed their own short-sightedness, that they hadn't checked maintenance again. For a better weapon. Something that wouldn't run out of ammo.

Kevin's eyes stayed closed, as he squirmed against the makeshift restraints they'd put on him. It was rope. That's what it was. Rope. Rachelle had helped tie him to the table. It was honestly the best they could do, and nobody was proud of it.

Cautious, Carlos approached the table where Kevin was sprawled out, tied down, moving restlessly in what still seemed to be his sleep. He spoke softly, “Kevin, can you hear me? Are you... awake, or anything?”

When no response came, he assumed that one wouldn't. Carlos sighed and returned to his post, sitting at the front of the room.

“You need to rest, Dr. C,” Avery suggested, watching the way his posture sank as time went by, how he touched a hand to his chest when he moved the wrong way. He wasn't bad enough that he couldn't keep trying to help, but bad enough he shouldn't have been.

Carlos shook his head. “I don't... I can't just leave like that.”

“He's unconscious, anyway—he might be unconscious for a very long time, Dr. C.” Avery shrugged, watching Kevin's movements settle down again. “We don't know anything about how these guys heal or anything... doesn't look like he's dropping dead, but I don't think he's gonna wake up in the next five minutes, anyway.”

A frown twitched at the corners of Carlos' lips. “I don't know... what if he does wake up? I want to be here. If he does.”

Avery grimaced. “He tried to kill you, Dr. C.”

“I bit his finger off,” Carlos replied. They'd considered trying to reattach it, but nobody knew how to do it, and honestly by the time he'd been dragged in, the severed digit was dried in the desert sun anyway. That was a lost cause.

“You're trying to justify a murderer,” Avery insisted. “ Why do you keep defending him?”

Carlos frowned, staring at the blood spots on the floor. Why defend Kevin? There were a lot of reasons. Not least among them that he didn't know how the Smiling God worked, but that it could have been Cecil if not for Kevin—Carlos didn't tell anyone, he didn't want to risk that they wouldn't trust Cecil when he came.

Bad enough he wondered if they would already turn on him, though the Smiling God had chosen Kevin, instead.

(Could it move? Pick a new host if Kevin died?)

But aside from that, he just couldn't stand staring at the prone body of someone who looked so nearly like his Cecil, either. The tattoos that covered them both were different, and Kevin's hair was short, his eyes were missing, but they looked so much alike, he'd have pegged them as twins.

(Were they related? Was this some weird Night Vale thing, and they were actually doppelgangers or something? Brothers almost seemed too simple of an answer.)

He answered Avery, “I don't think we should do it without Cecil's input. That's all.”

Avery grimaced and said nothing.

Kevin didn't wake.

* * *

Cecil lay in his bed, listening to his own voice playing back at him, while Kevin laid out on the wooden floor with a pillow and a municipally approved book on bloodstone circles.

(They'd ripped the carpeting out after Cecil's blood stained it black.)

The only sound in their bedroom was Cecil's enthusiastic voice as he judged it.

“Oh and, you'll never believe what I heard the other day, Night Vale. We're getting a new mayor soon! Yes, I think it's time for a change. Time for everything to change. Because everything is changing, Night Vale! Leonard Burton finally said he'd look at my tapes, I feel like I've been waiting forever. But time is weird, right? Time is so weird.”

He jotted this down in his Little Reporter's Book and sighed. That didn't sound right, but he wasn't sure if it was his voice, or the static he kept hearing whenever he paid enough attention. Still, he kept listening. He'd learned to at least let the tapes play through.

“I mean, it feels like just yesterday I first started practicing. But it's been so long! I don't even know how long, Night Vale. Since the prophecy. When was the prophecy? I don't know, but it feels so long ago, and so much has happened.”

In the background of the tape, Kevin's voice could be heard, “I'm bored of this already. Tell them about the tentacles.”

From his current place on the bedroom floor, Kevin snickered, and Cecil gave him a dirty look. “You know it's your fault I keep wrecking all my tapes.”

“I know,” he replied, peering up at his brother proudly. Cecil stared back at him, but they didn't look quite the same anymore. The mirror image had been lost, now that Cecil was covered in those strange black marks. The third eye that opened on his forehead one night stared blankly at nothing (it had been a splitting pain, he'd said, but at least it stopped itching). His hair was the same, his eyes—well, the two that had always been there—were the same. But nobody could have mistaken them for one another, anymore.

It drove Kevin nuts.

“You need to quit talking, Kev. I said you could listen while I recorded. Not jump in.” Cecil sighed and listened as the tape kept playing. At least he'd gotten better at keeping his composure; Kevin could interrupt him with anything and he'd just jump back to his report, like nothing had ever happened.

Now he could hardly listen to it, though, without Kevin interrupting again. “I was helping. Nobody wants to hear about your stupid prophecy, Ceec. This is radio we're talking about, you've gotta start telling real stories. Like. What's it like having new limbs? Tell me about your third eye. What's the Void like—”

“Kevin, stop,” he whined. “I'm not telling you about the Void again. I already told you.”

He rolled his eyes. “Okay, you said it was nothing. Got it. That's nothing I've never read in a text book, Cecil!” He closed the book he'd been reading, and sat back up. “But how'd you get there? What's it like really ? I mean, you said Leonard Burton even said something when you told him about the Void so it's gotta be important.”

Cecil frowned. “Well, so what? I'm sick of talking about it—you don't wanna talk about anything anymore but the Void. And my stupid third eye—I can't even see with it.” He shook his head, disappointed. That had been the worst realization, when he realized it was blind.

“Well. You only want to talk about that stupid radio,” Kevin complained. “Maybe I just wanna talk about something better . I'm sick of your prophecy and stupid Leonard Burton!”

The boys went quiet, Cecil's recording as the only sound in the room once more.

“And that concludes the fun fact science corner. Who knew you could do that with an ordinary piece of bread? I sure didn't. Remember, though—be safe at home, kids. Make sure you wear protective goggles before handling any of the snakes, as some of them spit.

Wow, I think I'm already almost done. I hope you all enjoyed my show, in case I get cut off before I come back. But for now, I should probably take you to the weather, before I forget!”

The [weather](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuJqUvBj4rE) came through distorted, a recording of a recording from Leonard Burton's last broadcast, and Cecil sighed and rolled to the side, stuffing his face in the pillow on his bed. Static crept into the corner of his vision when he didn't shut his eyes, and he couldn't even talk about it without Kevin getting jealous .

Kevin didn't pick up his book again, but shelved it with a few others. All approved, all pretty much useless; anything he wanted to read up on was basically impossible to find.

He walked over to his brother's bed and turned the recording off. “Your broadcast sucks, Ceec,” he announced as he pulled the tape out and prepared to take it apart, like he'd done to a number of others. Cecil rolled onto his side to watch him do it.

“You think it's the weather?” he asked.

Kevin unspooled the tape, pulling it out like ribbons before he dropped it in Cecil's lap. “Your voice sucks for radio.”

Cecil rolled his eyes—all three of them, apparently, from the look on Kevin's face. “Like you're any better. Anyway Leonard knows better, and he said he'd listen to my tapes.”

“Because of the stupid prophecy,” Kevin argued. “And yeah. Your voice is so... weird. It's too slow and quiet and—I'd just be better at it. That's all.” He turned to leave the room, but hesitated enough to give Cecil the chance to call out after him.

Taking his bait, Cecil snapped at him, “You're just jealous. You're jealous of the prophecy and the Void and—”

He spun around to face Cecil again. “I'm not jealous . The prophecy was just wrong . And why do you get one? Why do you get some stupid thing telling you how your life's supposed to be and nobody gave me one ? It's so... stupid and backwards! I'm clearly the smarter one.”

Before Cecil could get a word in, he just kept talking. “And you could tell me how you got to the Void, but you're selfish . I share everything with you! I even tried to help you make a double so you could sneak out with Earl . It's not my fault you messed it all up, quit holding it against me like I made you mess up and just tell me what you did!”

Cecil rose from his bed, eyes on the floor as he tried to edge past his brother. Kevin grabbed him to hold him to the spot.

“Come on , Ceec. Why won't you share ?” he whined, shaking Cecil's shoulders.

“Grow up , Kevin,” he finally hissed in return. “We're not babies anymore.”

Kevin dug his nails into his brother's arms. “What's that supposed to mean?” he growled, voice low and threatening as he could make it. Cecil refused to say another word, but tried to wrench himself free of Kevin's grasp—only, Kevin didn't let go so willingly.

He held on, nails drawing black blood where they pressed into Cecil's skin, but it wasn't the first time he'd walked away from his brother with black under his nails in the past few months. Cecil always faltered under the hostile grip, he always answered questions when Kevin held him down long enough. Kevin watched him with the anticipation of someone who knew his technique was tried and true.

When the first tentacle slid into view, out from under Cecil's loose tunic, Kevin didn't quite register what it was—it took a second and a third before he realized: Cecil wasn't stepping down this time.

“Let go of me. Or I'll use them,” he threatened. Blood dripped down from his lower back where they'd come out, from a body still unaccustomed to the extra appendages whatsoever.

“Why don't you fucking use them then?” Kevin snapped.

He felt a pair of foreign limbs grab him around the waist, a couple more around his wrists to pull back his hands. Cecil was forceful, but he wasn't rough, he didn't try anything careless, didn't want to hurt him.

(A few weeks ago, he'd broken Earl's wrist while they were kissing and he underestimated the strength of using his own new appendages as restraints.)

Kevin pulled back against the slick black tentacles that wound against his arms and torso, he couldn't do much more than budge them a few inches. He hissed in his brother's face, “Cheater.” And spit at him.

Cecil launched him a few feet, sending Kevin crashing to the floor only inches from slamming his head on his own bed frame. “What the hell was that for?” he complained, smearing the spit off his face. “I told you to let me go!”

“You're just cheating with those stupid things because I don't have any!” Kevin yelled.

“Why do you want them so badly?” Cecil asked, his own voice raising in volume to match his brother's voice. “Can't I have anything for myself without you getting jealous?”

Kevin pushed himself up off the floor, wincing with the movements. “You don't get it—you'll never get it, Cecil. You've always had it all! You got the stupid prophecy, you've got all the friends, I can't even show you any cool bloodstone circle stuff without you turning it into some stupid prophecy thing! The Void! Who goes to the Void and comes back ?” The words spilled out, faster than he could have even tried to stop them. “It's not fair, Cecil, everything just keeps happening for you and nothing ever happens for me! You get to kiss Earl, you get to go see the Void, you're the one with the cool tentacles and the third eye and—what about me ?”

Cecil stared at him like he'd just grown something weirder than tentacles. “What about you ? Not everything's about you and your stupid jealousy, Kevin!”

“Well not everything's about you and your dumb prophecy!” he yelled back.

He watched Kevin stomp over toward their shared desk, and Kevin's drawer was still busted but he pulled it out and grabbed his bloodstones, in their filthy little pouch. It was blatant, he wanted Cecil to see it, he didn't break eye contact with his brother the whole time.

“What the hell are you doing now ?” he grumbled, at the same time unsure if he wanted to go along with whatever drama Kevin was trying to start.

Kevin looked back at him with nothing but hate in his eyes. “I'm done watching you get everything while I get nothing.”

He left their room, and Cecil didn't follow. Instead, he sighed, walked over to the desk, and pulled a fresh tape out. He'd get in a recording while Kevin was out of the room throwing his tantrum—and maybe later, he'd actually have something finished he could send to Leonard Burton. A tape without his brother's stupid input for once.

It didn't even cross his mind to think that Kevin would do anything.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Synopsis:
> 
> Scene opens on a chemistry lab, described clearly as a lab where Carlos had taught his students prior to everything going to shit. The lab, now, has been repurposed as a sort of multi-purpose hospital room/cell however, with an unconscious Kevin tied to a table (with shitty makeshift rope restraints). Finally, the reassurance we've been waiting for: Carlos isn't the prisoner. Instead, he's seated in the lab, keeping an eye on Kevin alongside Avery, who reassures him that they're trying to get into touch with Dr. Kayali and the others.  
> Carlos is notably disturbed to see Kevin injured, because of how similar he looks to Cecil. The scene blurs into a flashback that covers what happened in the moments after Carlos blacked out earlier, when Kevin broke one of his ribs.  
> When Kevin and Carlos hit the ground fighting, Avery fled to the hiding place of a weapon they'd brought just in case something went wrong: a nail gun. They shot at Kevin and threatened him, and it got him to leave Carlos alone, but he turned on Avery to attack them instead. Initially convinced that Avery couldn't hurt them with the nail gun, Kevin gets too cocky and Avery is able to get close enough to do damage, pressing the nail gun to his chest and shooting until he runs out of nails.  
> After bringing Carlos in to be looked over by Rachelle, Avery returns with a group of students to gather up Kevin, on suspicion that he might not be dead; he turns out to be only unconscious. Carlos wakes up in Rachelle's care, and notes that she barely seems to recognize him, anymore. The two of them help clean Kevin out and attempt to bandage his wounds, though Carlos ends up having to leave the room, upset again by Kevin's similarity to Cecil.  
> Presently, Carlos and Avery are just sitting in the lab, watching him. Carlos seems to be the only one defending Kevin and trying to keep him alive, primarily due to not knowing whether the Smiling God would shift over to Cecil if Kevin were to die. He doesn't want to risk this, but doesn't explain to anyone, not knowing if they would become afraid of Cecil as well. Instead, he just tries to defend Kevin without explaining why.  
> While the duo are conversing, Kevin stirs a bit in his sleep and Carlos checks on him quickly, to see if he's awake. He doesn't wake up, however, presumably just dreaming.  
> Avery tries to tell Carlos to go and rest, since he's injured, but Carlos refuses, insisting that he wants to stay by Kevin. It's implied that he doesn't know if Kevin would be killed if he left his side, and he can't risk that happening.  
> He insists that Cecil will be able to fix everything, once he arrives, and to wait for his input before they do anything.
> 
>  
> 
> aaaand....the second half of the chapter is safe. so enjoy!
> 
> thanks as always for reading. I'm nearing 100k; I haven't written that much in about three years, I'm ready to celebrate haha.
> 
> comments are always appreciated!


	34. The Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mx. Mitchell receives a visitor at the station. Somewhere else, Cecil catches up with an old friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise! no warnings this chapter!

“Listeners, I know you've all noticed the massive spire that's appeared outside of city hall. It appears to be made of some kind of brown stone—maybe sandstone? I don't know, but I'm receiving reports that people are trying to knock it down. I shouldn't have to tell you why this is a terrible idea.”

Mx. Mitchell sighed as they leaned across the desk to grab at a different stack of papers and leaf through it while talking. “I really don't know why I have to still tell you—it's been a few weeks. Stop touching things you don't understand.”

After Cecil left her those text messages, apologized and vanished without a trace, Mx. Mitchell had tried to get back in touch, or get in touch with that scientist boyfriend of his, or something. It amounted to nothing.

Life in Night Vale was changing. They'd accepted a number of new citizens that nobody could acknowledge. Hooded figures crowded and hovered around the fenced-off University. It didn't take long for rumors to spread that they'd gone inside—but nobody was permitted inside. That was one thing Mx. Mitchell knew needed to be enforced. If the hooded figures entered, nobody was allowed to talk about it.

“In other news, the city-wide ban of wheat and wheat by-products has gone over...mostly swimmingly. I know most of you have been cooperating. Thank you. That... honestly makes this all so much easier. To everyone that's been swearing off their wheat and by-products, you're helping everyone. As for the rest of you--the Night Vale hospital is running out of resources to treat all the snake bites, so we might have to stop soon if people keep getting themselves bit?”

A laugh escaped that they didn't understand. "Listen. Seriously. Use your heads here, people. It sounds pretty unfair, you're all hoarding things you know are ticking time bombs. Now, I know I'm no mayor--the mayor's still missing, update on that later. Now, I know I'm no authority figure here, but I'd say it's not right to waste our resources on people who've willingly put themselves into that situation? Think about it, people."

They'd all but abandoned any semblance of a personal life. Anita wasn't much of a person anymore. Mx. Mitchell was a radio announcer, the town's lifeline. The new voice of Night Vale? No. That didn't feel right as a title. It belonged to somebody else.

For now, Mx. Mitchell was just the voice of reason, in a very unreasonable world.

"The medical staff is still busy with people recovering from last week's street cleaner incident. Those were innocent people. Guilty of breaking no rules... just wrong place, wrong time. Do you see what the difference is? Do you?"

Mx. Mitchell felt a shudder go up their spine as they mentioned it. The street cleaner had gone rogue last Friday. Nobody had tracked it down yet—it vanished somewhere into the desert, leaving a trail of blood and death in its wake.

"I don't want to keep getting on here to berate everyone. I mean, I know, business of a small town radio host, I should help keep this place sane, yadda yadda--you guys need to step up to the plate and try and stay a bit sane yourselves?"

They shuffled through papers on the desk, looking for the next topic. As fast as interns had been coming and going (mostly going, lately), they'd still been doing a lot of journalistic work before they went. People were starting to believe what they heard on the radio. Things like the hooded figures, the dangerous figures in the library--those had been simple enough to explain. A second pile consisted of everything Mx. Mitchell was not looking forward to discussing. But it was one of these topics they shuffled out next.

"In less uh... condescending news, maybe, the school board has elected a new member recently. Those of you who haven't wiped the whole damn thing from your minds might remember the incident a few weeks back in which an enormous glowing cloud came and rained animals on us all from above. Well, heh, lucky us. They came back."

Mx. Mitchell stared at the notes as they read, unsure how to soften the blow. Mind control. A strange glowing cloud as president of the school board. The small glowing cloud that transferred into the Night Vale Public High School. "...anyway," they continued with a sigh, "They came back, the Glow Cloud—all hail—and after some talking with the school board, proved that they actually really knew what they were doing? Turns out the Glow Cloud was just looking for a good school to send their—uh... little...baby cloud to, and not trying to cause the wholesale fucking destruction that they caused as they passed through."

"Anyway, we're all past that, right? We can all sympathize with someone who just wants to do the best they can for their offspring. And we're all glad to welcome the Glow Cloud to the school board and hope for many years of wonderful, devoted—"

A soft knock at the door to the broadcasting booth made them jump; Mx. Mitchell peered over toward the door, and behind the foggy window was the unfamiliar face of a strange woman. Strange wasn't maybe the best term. There were much stranger things to see--she was just a stranger, that was better. Her skin was dark, her gaze was gentle, and she looked like she could have run a business or something, but there she was knocking on broadcasting booths instead. It was so rude.

"Ah—excuse me, ladies and gents and gender unaffiliated entities—there appears to be somebody knocking at my booth door? I'll put you to the weather and uh, wish me luck. Doesn't look like another threat, but... never certain, right?" Mx. Mitchell laughed as they picked out the first song to shuffle up on their computer. "Keep fighting the good fight."

They switched on the  [ weather ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_aNKCcOOY0) before rising to face the door, right hand sliding imperceptibly toward a can of pepper spray on the desk. It was in her hand as she opened the door to her visitor.

"Can I help you?"

The woman's expression fell into a small frown at Mx. Mitchell's stern address. "Sorry if I interrupted anything important. You're the voice of this radio station, is that right?"

Mx. Mitchell hesitated at the question, looked at her like her head would fall right off. What else would anyone be doing in the booth while broadcasting other than serving as the voice of the station? "...Yes...? Who the hell are you?"

"Ah--sorry. I should have said. I'm mayor--...I'm Dana Cardinal." She smiled and shot her hand out for an overeager handshake. Mx. Mitchell stared at her quivering hand and refused to shake it, still fingering the can of mace in their own right hand.

"Rather not," they replied.

Dana lowered her hand just as quickly, almost relieved in doing it. "Sorry, miss...? What did you say your name was?" she asked.

Mx. Mitchell grimaced. "I'm not a 'miss' to you, miss Mayor Dana Cardinal. This is a professional meeting, isn't it? I'd appreciate the honorific 'Mx.' instead. Mx. Mitchell, at your service... provided your service coincides well enough with my town, miss mayor."

"Ah, sorry. That... slipped out," she replied with a nervous laugh. "I'm not really anything, here. You can just think of me as Cecil's friend."

That description did little to help. Mx. Mitchell watched her, eyes narrowed, as she shifted uncomfortably where she stood. Dana was pretty young to be in any position of political power, but if she came from wherever Cecil had hailed from, there was no telling what was really true from just looking at her.

What did seem true, is that she wasn't any more comfortable being here than Mx. Mitchell was having her. They had that to agree on, at the very least.

"Do your titles just vanish when you leave...where are you from, miss Cardinal?" they asked, stepping out of the booth and closing the door behind them. This would perhaps be a better impromptu interview to conduct elsewhere in the station.

Dana replied with confidence, "I'm the mayor of Night Vale."

After a long silence: "This is Night Vale, miss Cardinal, and—no insult—but you aren't our mayor. Is this some kind of trick?"

She shook her head and replied, "No trick, Mx. Mitchell. I... wasn't sure if I would have the right words to say, to explain what's going on. I barely understand it, myself. I was born into the last Night Vale—but I brought someone with me who knows a bit more. Is it alright if I invite them in?"

Mx. Mitchell said nothing, boggling at her words and the fact that she had thought nothing of inviting herself in, then hesitated on someone else. Were they that bad? They heard themselves say that it was alright, and heard Dana call for her friend, but it all seemed pretty distant when the incredibly tall figure ducked in through the front door and entered the station.

Tall and silhouetted and seemingly nothing but wings and eyes and more eyes, Erika might have smiled at Mx. Mitchell on entering the building, but she really couldn't tell. Did Erika have a mouth to smile? All they seemed to have were eyes and eyes and eyes.

"What's... ...that...?" Mx. Mitchell asked, voice wavering.

Dana smiled up at the figure, then back over at Mx. Mitchell again. "This is Erika—well, one of the Erikas. They're... I suppose I can say it, here. Angels. Wow. Feels good to say it."

Mx. Mitchell wondered if she'd ever read in any bible about towering angels with massive sets of wings and eyes, angels black as coal and threatening to stand before, but nothing religious came to mind except the fear of god.

Erika approached, and it was all but impossible to move away. Not because of physical incapability—it simply didn't feel wise. So Mx. Mitchell stayed put as the angel reached out an oversized hand and, with spindly fingers outstretched, laid their palm over her head.

It was then that their words began to make sense.

The story of Night Vale, she thought, was only complicated if you tried to argue logically.

Where it stood intuitively, it was simple:

Night Vale was the tale of a storyteller, a tale as old as time, because that time had only begun when the first words were spoken. It followed wherever he went, because it couldn't exist alone. People came, people went, some left Night Vale behind, returned to a larger story, maybe one told by somebody else. Still others followed, loyal friends, or family, or hopeful citizens who thought their own stories weren't over yet.

Still others were written out, and left behind.

 

* * *

 

'I hadn't recognized you at first. I don't know how long it's been.'

The words Cecil heard, they were a language he hadn't heard in ages. In that strange way that time was so unpredictable, it seemed like far too much of it had passed beyond anyone's control. Certainly beyond his.

Initially, as they'd departed into the desert, he walked alongside Dr. Kayali. It was a ragtag group of people, her students and colleagues following quietly along. Masked figures carried those who couldn't walk, who had been overcome by exhaustion or dehydration. Nobody stayed back at the encampment, however.

If they went back, they went back together.

Cecil slowly fell into step behind the group from the University, all too conscious of the looks they gave him. Nobody trusted him, not fully. He wasn't an ally. He was only the last resort that any of them had.

Alisha had approached him first, and spoke in low tones so that the others wouldn't be bothered by the sound. They accosted him. They had called him by name, and clearly recognized him. Behind their feathered mask, Cecil could not say the same of them, only that he knew their name in the back recesses of his mind, and didn't want to connect it.

'Old Nightvalian. I haven't heard anyone speak those tongues since I was young,' Cecil replied as means of acknowledging where they were from. But he didn't look toward them.

'Were you ever young?' they quipped back.

Cecil laughed, faintly. 'I do think I was. I don't know if it followed the order it should have, but time is... very strange, wouldn't you agree?'

Their nod signaled the start of a silence. The group continued to walk onward through the sands, the endless repeating landscape of the desert, and Alisha watched Cecil quietly as he walked slightly ahead of them and refused to fall back into step.

At length, they asked him, 'Do you remember me at all, Cecil?'

He didn't answer.

'Has it been so long that you don't?' they asked.

A new silence took over, heavy in the dry air, and Cecil more pointedly looked toward the ground beneath his feet as though he could ignore the issue. Alisha didn't bother him again; they waited, and in time, he broke the silence himself.

'Is everyone else here from Night Vale, too?' Cecil asked, finally looking back at them. As though he'd see some answer in an expression that they hid behind their mask.

Alisha shook their head. 'Many. Most. Some of the others, they're from Desert Bluffs—the old Desert Bluffs. The old Night Vale.'

He couldn't help the bitter laugh that escaped his mouth. ' Which old Night Vale? Which old Desert Bluffs?' he asked.

'I don't know—does it matter? You knew me. We all knew you—those of us who didn't know your brother first,' they replied. 'Or just both of you.'

They fell into the third category. Alisha. He remembered them growing up down the street from him and Kevin. A bit younger than the two of them. A lot older than Abby. But that was another sort of time, another sort of place, almost unfamiliar after the times and places he'd seen in the years to follow.

Memories of the childhood he'd had were interspersed with disruptions from the times he shouldn't have ever been exposed to. Shag carpeting and Victorian sensibilities, fringe dresses and legwarmers. Time was weird.

Cecil refused to look at them but answered, 'You probably remember before everything changed, I'd think you might think that matters. I grew up with you. Well, near you. I think you were better friends with Kevin.'

Alisha sighed, 'That was a different time. I see it's you that has come back to set things straight, finally. At least, I should hope that's what you're doing here.'

He said nothing, and let the non-answer speak for itself. He was certainly trying to set things straight, to set some things straight, anyway. He had a strong feeling that the figure walking nearly beside him had differing ideas of what needed to be set straight, first.

'I hadn't seen you in so long, either of you, I thought you had vanished from existence or simply died,' they remarked to fill the silence. 'Imagine my surprise when, I don't know how long ago, Kevin suddenly appeared. I was incredibly glad to see him.'

Cecil cringed in anticipation of their next words, knowing what was coming. What was always coming with anyone who welcomed his brother into their midst. But they didn't say a thing, and the pause drove Cecil to make his own reply.

'Time does change people, doesn't it?' he asked.

Alisha answered, 'Not really.'

The University was coming into view up ahead, a time when normally, Cecil would have taken off running. He wasn't sure what fate awaited Carlos at the other end, he wasn't sure if his arrival five minutes sooner could mean the difference between holding his lover in his arms alive, or dead.

Nobody in the group picked up the pace at all, and he stayed back and walked with everyone else. Kevin's bloodstones were still in his hands. A growing lump was in his throat. He could think of a dozen possibilities for their arrival at the University, and none were very good.

'Are you hoping to talk some sense into your brother?' they asked, noting his anxiousness, the way he fingered the bag of bloodstones like he was taking inventory of the stones through the fabric.

Cecil frowned. 'I don't know. I'm just hoping we aren't already too late.'

'I believe,' Alisha reassured, 'That you could make enough time if you wanted to.'

He looked up at them, but said nothing, and the silence reigned once more.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, I'm sorry about not posting as frequently anymore. been going through some shit.
> 
> rest assured, even if it takes me another couple weeks to post the next chapter (it hopefully shouldn't), I'm not abandoning this story or anything. I will see it through to completion after I've spent this long theorizing for it. ha.
> 
> so now we've gotten into some heavier stuff of how and why Night Vale works like it does, whoa. it'll be elaborated on more through continuing flashbacks and word-of-mouth, but I knew I had to move the present plotline forward a bit more this chapter. we'll get more young Cecil and Kevin next chapter, probably. hooray!
> 
> anyway, sorry again for the delay. thanks for comments and kudos as always. you guys rock!


	35. Slivers of Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a flashback, Kevin performs an incorrect bloodstone ritual. In the present, he finally sees his brother again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to make up for lost time, here's the second chapter I was working on in tandem with the last one.
> 
> first section: no warnings. minor blood in the "weird night vale rituals" sense.
> 
> second section: i am so sorry. blood, dismemberment, and death to follow.
> 
> synopsis at the end.

The basement was a cluttered mess, as it had ever been, but Kevin crept past covered furniture and empty boxes toward the space where he'd been practicing his bloodstone circles.

(Without Cecil, these days. He could do it himself.)

He opened the pouch, spilling out the stones haphazardly onto the wood. They were familiar enough with one another, Kevin and his bloodstones. His years of caution dissolved away into a comfortable trust as he laid each out in a circle around him, in order.

Cecil always followed order like he was terrified of what could happen if he didn't; he just never thought of sneaking out or breaking rituals or what might happen if maybe he didn't just listen to that prophecy he'd been given. From the pristine condition of each municipally approved book he owned, to the perfectly timed ritual of his bloodstone prayers, it was like he never fucked up. In the sort of way like someone who was terrified of what might happen if he did slip up for once.

Thinking nothing of his own attitude but that he'd never been good enough to be his brother, Kevin trusted his instinct most days, but that day he stuffed back the feeling that something wasn't right. It was in favor of proving to Cecil that he could be important, too.

It was worth whatever misgivings he had to ignore.

Kevin carved out the necessary symbols in his arms as he began the ritual, blood dripping from the tip of his pocket knife and onto each stone in turn. He'd been doing a lot of reading, and he was pretty sure he knew now what Cecil had done, even if Cecil wouldn't confirm it for sure.

So he began to perform the same doppelganger trick he'd shown his own living, breathing double some months ago. Only, he performed each step in reverse, like a mirror image of himself. Left handed maneuvers became right handed. The stones hummed as he took it slowly, one step at a time, to focus on getting the reversal just so.

Cecil had said very little about the Void. He said it was somewhat pleasant, if dark.

The basement was pretty dark, already. Lit only by a bare bulb hanging somewhere overhead, Kevin sat in the shadows with his bloodstones, everything only just light enough to see, but dark enough to know that his presence wasn't obvious.

Nobody would follow him downstairs. Their mother spent most of her time hissing at Cecil now, she'd almost softened toward Kevin after the incident. Maybe she preferred him now, but he didn't feel like a favored child.

He told himself he was a rebel, and he'd make up for the prophecy he never had.

As he finished his last few symbols, the room started to cover over in a black haze that he hoped had been exactly what Cecil had seen. His heart raced, and his mind buzzed, and he couldn't help but crack a grin, wider than he thought he ever had before.

He almost had it. He almost had it.

A new sliver of light swept into the room as the door to the upstairs swung open. His brother's voice called out. “Hey, Kev? Where'd you move my cassettes?”

Kevin startled to his feet like he'd been caught in the act of something devious—maybe he had. He answered, quickly, “I didn't touch them!”

He hoped his reply would shoo Cecil away, but instead he ventured in further, his form a silhouetted shape in the light that shined into the room. Cecil called out more curiously, now. “What are you even doing down here, Kevin?”

“Hah, nothing,” Kevin answered, and made a move to kick his bloodstone circle apart. He told himself he'd finish the ritual later. His foot made contact with the last unbloodied stone and as it skittered across the cold cement floor, he knew instantly that he'd made a mistake.

The room around him fractured and splintered into spots of light, his glasses shattered on his face. Bits of furniture and boxes broke apart into abstract figures, and the last thing he saw with any clarity was Cecil running toward him, calling out, incomprehensible.

Kevin closed his eyes against the blinding light, but he could still feel it burning through his eyelids like nothing he'd ever seen before. He smashed his palms against his eyes. It was like trying to ignore being lit on fire.

The next thought to cross his mind felt final:

It was all Cecil's fault.

 

* * *

 

“Hold him down, hold him down—”

“You think I'm not trying?!”

Carlos strained to push the frantic man back against his table again—it had happened pretty quickly. Kevin laid there like the dead for so long, and then when he finally moved more than just to settle in his sleep, he was thrashing. Tugging against the rope bindings. Howling like something unnatural, like he was in pain.

Between the two of them, Avery and Carlos probably only had a slight advantage because he was wounded—Carlos was confident Kevin could have thrown them both off if he hadn't been. His movements had torn open any scabbing that had formed over his wounds, ripped out a number of stitches. Black blood poured onto the table, dripping off of him, and splattered on the pair as they tried to hold him still.

“Kevin. Kevin! You need to calm down, you're injured,” Carlos tried to reason.

Avery snapped, “It's his own damn fault if he kills himself.”

Carlos gave them a dirty look and reminded, “We're trying not to kill him, remember? Cecil should be here soon.” He turned his face to Kevin again, “Cecil's going to be here soon. I heard a bit on the phone—you like him, right? You should probably behave for him.”

Gradually, Kevin calmed his flailing as Carlos spoke to him. He settled down, lying still on the table as he gasped to catch his breath, wincing on each inhale. Carlos released the pressure on his chest, but kept his shoulders pinned.

Avery was still holding down his legs, though he'd quit kicking. “Honestly. What the fuck was that. Can't anyone around here not freak out like, for five minutes?”

Ignoring Avery's remark, Carlos instead watched Kevin experimentally open his eyes, just a crack, squinting against the bright overhead lighting to make out the silhouette hanging over him. Under direct enough lighting, Carlos could make out the difference between the two seemingly empty eye sockets. One was, indeed, now an empty hole—the one he'd torn out to give to Avery, of course. His other eye, Carlos could tell was actually metal underneath the blood. Something resembling the iris of a camera, only who knows how it still functioned in such a condition.

Maybe it didn't, much. Kevin closed his eyes again, and when it seemed he was simply going back to sleep, instead he murmured, quietly, “Cecil's...coming?”

Carlos knew they had some history, it couldn't have been that bad—Kevin's response sounded... hopeful. Tired, weak, but above all else, hopeful.

Now with the adrenaline wearing off, Carlos remembered his own injury that he'd been trying to ignore. The broken rib that Kevin had given him. But he'd bit off the man's finger. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to feel like that made them even.

He settled on a neutral approach. “Cecil should be here...any minute now, really.” He looked to Avery for confirmation, but they weren't looking at Carlos at all.

Instead, their gaze, their one good eye, was focused across the room at the group that had just entered. Led by Rachelle—no doubt to show them where the proper location was—Dr. Kayali had come in, along with a couple of students, an unfamiliar professor, and a man they could have only guessed to be Cecil Palmer.

When he caught sight of Carlos, he pushed ahead of the others in the group—Dr. Kayali tried to grab at his arm and scold him, afraid of what intentions he had until Carlos broke away from Kevin's side and ran to meet his lover halfway.

“Cecil! You're alright!” he called out, and as Cecil pulled him into a tight hug, he let out a startled yelp. “Ah—stop—stop. Gentle.”

He immediately released Carlos, taking his face in his hands instead. “Did somebody hurt you, Carlos? Are you alright? Who hurt you—”

“Kevin did it,” Avery replied, a hint of warning in their voice as they added, “I shot him with a nail gun in return. So don't try anything.”

Cecil reeled to face Avery and replied harshly, “What, are you going to shoot more people with nail guns? You're lucky nail guns don't kill people. You shouldn't be trying to kill Kevin, anyway—none of you should be.”

With that comment, the tension in the room came to a head. Dr. Kayali butted into the conversation, “What the hell do you mean we shouldn't be killing Kevin? I was under the impression that was the entire reason you were here—to help us get rid of him.”

“See, we shouldn't have trusted him,” Theo muttered, to nobody in particular.

Carlos edged back away from the others, as Cecil spun to face Dr. Kayali now instead. He felt his back bump against a table, but didn't register fully that it was Kevin's table until he felt a hand close around his wrist.

“I mean exactly what I'm saying, for once. If you kill Kevin—no. I won't let you kill him,” Cecil hissed. “As terrible as he may be, it would only make everything worse.”

“And why the fuck is that?” Avery snapped. “Carlos was talking that same nonsense—keep him alive, like there's something worse than Kevin, alive?”

(His words were quiet as he whispered to Carlos, “Is Cecil going to protect us?”)

Cecil insisted, “Yes, there is something far worse. You don't know anything about what's going on—you have no business making judgments over who lives or dies.”

“Then why should you get to make them?” Dr. Kayali asked. “What is it that you know that means you can choose who's supposed to live or die?”

(“I think so,” Carlos murmured, quiet in return. He half-registered what the others were saying, but he was watching Kevin now. The bleeding hadn't slowed at all.)

“I know a lot more about this situation than you,” Cecil argued. “Than any of you—you don't know me, you don't know Kevin, you don't know how long I've been doing this—”

Avery scoffed, “And well, clearly it's working, huh. Yeah, nevermind all the dead folks.”

(Rachelle edged over toward Kevin as well, keeping out of the conversation. She looked down at him, at all of the blood spilling out on the table. Almost imperceptibly, she smiled.)

Cecil sighed, massaging his temples. He replied, “Unfortunately, in any situation such as this, there are likely to be casualties—it cannot always be helped. People will die. Everyone will die. Even I will—”

“Stop with the philosophical trash,” Avery interrupted. “You're not trying to help anyone. You're not trying to help anyone but yourself, and your—what, brother? Clone?”

(“Rachelle, are you alright?”

“Of course. Why wouldn't I be?”

“Why are you smiling?”)

He scowled. “No. That's not the case at all—listen. If you would just let me talk—”

“Then you can use your influence against us, is that what you had planned?” Dr. Kayali accused. “Just let you talk, so that you can bend us all to your weird little whims.”

(She looked up at Carlos with a light burning behind her eyes, “Everything is going to be alright, Carlos. You, and me, and everyone, and Kevin, and our benevolent Smiling God.”)

Cecil raised his voice to speak over them, “No! Because if you kill Kevin, then the Smiling God has no other choice than to choose a new vessel, and the only other suitable one in this awful, miserable place— Is. Me.”

Silence followed for only a few moments before Carlos let out a cry of surprise, too slow to catch Rachelle's hand as she revealed her weapon, not fast enough to grab her before she slammed the screwdriver down through the sewn eyelid over Kevin's third eye.

Everyone spun to face them, but Cecil moved first, “Get away! Get away, damn it!”

Rachelle stumbled back from what she'd done, a look on her face between horror and manic glee—Kevin's eyes opened, but one was missing, one was damaged, and the third was nailed shut with a screwdriver torn through the lid.

He said nothing, his hands reached up uselessly and fell flat against the table; but after one or two shudders passed through his body, Kevin fell limp.

Cecil didn't even try to check his brother's body; he dove around the table and after Rachelle, who tried to run only to fall flat on her face, a thick black tentacle wrapped around her leg before she'd even had time to notice its emergence.

“What have you done to my brother, you monster?!” Cecil cried, his voice warped, unnatural, impossibly loud. He pulled her in with tentacles around her legs, like reeling in prey; he pinned her against the floor. “You monster .”

Rachelle cried out, “Don't hurt me, don't—I did what he wanted—”

He would hear none of it. Before everyone's watching eyes, Cecil tore into the scientist's flesh. Her cries for mercy warped into desperate, incoherent screams until he at last tore out her throat and silenced her once and for all.

Nobody said a word. Carlos checked Kevin for a pulse, but he wasn't breathing anymore.

As for the rest, they stared in stunned silence as Cecil continued past the point of death, now mutilating Rachelle's limp body. Blood spread on the floor, seeped into the grout between the tiles, dripping from the viscera that he spread out from her body as he tore her apart.

Carlos was the first to approach, and his voice shook as he called out to Cecil, “Hey... hey, you... don't have to—...she's... Cecil, she's already dead.” His coworker, a friend, spread out on the floor like a butchered animal. Tears streamed from his eyes, but he kept his composure as well as he could.

It was mostly just to keep safe.

Cecil stopped what he was doing after Carlos spoke, and turned to face him with blood dripping down his chin. It took a moment to recognize the fleshy lump in his hand as Rachelle's heart, only with a chunk torn out of it.

The blood streaming from the corners of his eyes wasn't red, the black soaking into the rag tied over his third eye was familiar in a sense that Carlos didn't want to acknowledge. Fearfully had to acknowledge: something was terribly wrong.

As he raised it to his mouth to tear another piece off, Carlos half-whispered to the others, “Run.”

Nobody moved, and he turned to face them, leaving his back exposed to Cecil as he yelled now, “I said run!”

Those closest to the door got out quickly; Avery reached for Carlos' hand to help pull him out faster. He let out a cry as a thick black tentacle snatched him back, pulling him in by Cecil. “Stop, Cecil, stop!”

Dr. Kayali grabbed the radio host and all but dragged them from the room; they didn't want to leave, and the door slammed shut with them calling out to Carlos.

“We're gonna get you out!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> synopsis:
> 
> The second section begins with Kevin thrashing against his restraints, while Avery and Carlos try to hold him down. It's implied that maybe he was having a nightmare, or something. The two argue over whether he's being restrained for his own safety because he's wounded, or for the safety of others. Carlos tells him that Cecil is coming, and it seems to calm Kevin down.  
> Before he can even make more promises at Cecil's arrival and really talk to Kevin (who seems much more subdued now than before), the group really does show up, consisting of Rachelle at front, Dr. Kayali, Cecil, Theo, and a few students following.  
> Cecil breaks free of the group and runs to Carlos, who leaves Kevin's side to run to Cecil and meet him halfway. He hugs Carlos, who winces and pulls away, due to his injury. Cecil immediately gets defensive, asking how Carlos was injured, and Avery responds that it was Kevin's fault.  
> This turns into a heated discussion over whether it's better to let Kevin live or to kill him, with everyone repeatedly interrupting each other. Cecil argues for Kevin's life, Avery and Dr. Kayali argue for his death, Theo just thinks this whole damn thing was a bad idea.  
> While this is occurring, Carlos breaks from the group, backing away until he ends up by Kevin again. Kevin takes hold of his wrist, and asks him if Cecil is going to protect them, to which Carlos insists that he will. Rachelle, likewise, breaks from the group to head over by Kevin. She smiles down at him, and seems almost pleased to see him in this state. According to Rachelle, everything is fine--she makes reference to the Smiling God, however.  
> In the meantime, Cecil is still arguing with the others, who have rendered him all but incapable of explaining his point, which he only manages to barely get out: if Kevin dies, the Smiling God will have nowhere to go except for the only other suitable host in the room: Cecil, himself.  
> Moments later, Rachelle rams a screwdriver straight through Kevin's third eye, presumably into his brain--Carlos cries out, and everyone looks over to see Rachelle looking quite pleased with herself as Kevin thrashes once or twice more, and then goes limp.  
> Cecil instantly abandons all sense of rational thought and chases Rachelle down to avenge his brother, tackling her and tearing her apart in front of everyone, even as she screams for help. Nobody says anything, staring in horror as he continues to tear her apart, even after her death--an action less reflective of Cecil's behavior in the past, and far more reminiscent of Kevin.  
> Carlos finally approaches, telling him to stop, that Rachelle is already dead. When Cecil turns to face him, he can tell that not only is Cecil tearing her apart, but he has Rachelle's heart in his hand and is eating it. The black blood seeping from his eyes--again, reflective of Kevin's state--seals the deal that something has gone terribly wrong.  
> Carlos calls for the others to run, and tries to run as well, but Cecil grabs him and pulls him back. Avery is the last to leave the room, dragged out by Dr. Kayali, calling out to Carlos that they're going to save him.  
> The door slams shut.
> 
>  
> 
> aaaand... whew. that was a thing. who knows where this will go next?
> 
> you guys don't. none of you know. and if you think you know, you're probably wrong.
> 
> comments and kudos are always appreciated. lay it on me, guys. <3


	36. Conversion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos notices a change in Cecil. In a flashback, Earl notices a change as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well here fucking goes another slew of warnings, oops.
> 
> first section: blood, gore, eye horror, mild partner abuse (forced kissing, emotional manipulation)
> 
> second section: blood, eye horror
> 
> seems like the theme of the week is eye horror.
> 
> synopsis at the end. not in the notes, but the actual chapter, since it ran too long for notes.

As the door slammed shut, Carlos felt his heart drop into the pit of his stomach.

Cecil's tentacles had reeled him in, and his arms wound around Carlos' shoulders to hold him in his lap. The embrace that had felt so warm and comforting before, now it felt like a prison. Cecil buried his face in Carlos' curled hair, and held him there in silence for a while.

The only sound in the still room was Carlos sniffling, trying not to cry. He didn't know what might happen if he did start crying—he didn't know what to expect from Cecil, anymore.

It was Carlos who broke the silence, at length. “Cecil...? Are...are you alright?”

The question seemed... safe enough, anyway.

“Oh, beautiful Carlos, of course I'm alright,” he replied, voice a bit too effervescent for Cecil's norm. “I have you here with me, don't I? What could possibly spoil that?”

Carlos thought he could spoil it, but he didn't want to risk it. He asked, as carefully as he could, if Cecil would loosen his grip at the very least. “Please? You're hurting me—I mean, I'm already hurt, and you're—please, just. Can you let go or something?”

Apparently, that was the wrong question. Cecil's grip on him tightened, “I'm not ever letting you go, you don't even have to worry about that.”

He winced and sputtered out, “N-not really concerned about that—please at least less tight? Cecil, please.” Carlos tried to keep his voice steady, but it rose in pitch as he spoke, stained and in pain from the pressure Cecil was putting on his chest.

Finally, his words seemed to get through, and Cecil slowly unwound the layers of tentacles that gripped him, releasing him. Carlos didn't dare move out of his lap, knowing that his freedom to breathe was a granted one, and could just as easily be revoked.

Cecil rested his chin on his boyfriend's head again, murmuring to him, “Do you know how much I love you, Carlos? Perfect Carlos? Do you know?”

“I-I um... a...lot?” Carlos guessed, still waiting for the pain to die down again to a dull ache, still hoping he wouldn't say something stupid at any moment.

This time, Cecil lifted Carlos up to turn him in his lap. Just to make sure Carlos was facing him, looking in his eyes as he corrected him. “No, not just a lot. More than anything, Carlos. More than everything .”

When he placed a hand under Carlos' chin to tilt his face up, Carlos could hardly stand to look him in the eyes. Cecil's glasses were smudged with black blood, the same blood slowly making its way down the center of his forehead, from his covered third eye, from his ordinary eyes as well. Something was changed, even in the way Cecil looked at him. His stare had always been intense; now it was almost glazed over.

“Do you love me too, Carlos?” he asked, the tip of a tentacle gently stroking Carlos' cheek as he held his face in his hands.

Carlos nodded, he couldn't afford for his voice to fail him right now. The answer worked well enough to satisfy Cecil, apparently; he leaned in and kissed Carlos on the lips, his mouth still stained with Rachelle's blood.

That was the final straw that Carlos couldn't handle; he gagged and pulled away, scrambling to put distance between himself and Cecil. “S-stop. Stop.”

His reaction took Cecil seemingly by surprise, and a moment later, he had gone from surprised to angry. “Why won't you kiss me? Carlos, do you love me?”

“I—I do, Cecil,” he answered, although he was crying again. Carlos couldn't wipe enough at the tears on his face, he moved his glasses up onto his head, but he was just smearing blood onto his cheeks and getting it in his eyes. “I love you, I just—”

“Just what?” Cecil asked, accusing.

The words spilled out before he could think them over, “You've got so much blood on you and it's in your mouth and Rachelle was my friend , Cecil!”

Gingerly, Cecil reached out to wipe at Carlos' tears, only smearing more blood on him in the process, black and red. He tried to pull Carlos into his lap again, but Carlos slapped his hands away on reflex, then looked quickly to Cecil's face for a reaction.

“...you'll be used to the blood soon, Carlos,” Cecil reassured, as though those words could be anything near reassuring. “Please, come back here. I need you.”

He shook his head. “No. Cecil—Cecil, something's wrong. What about Kev—what about your brother? Don't you want to check him?” It was a desperate distraction, but he hoped it might give him a moment more to think.

Cecil's expression barely shifted, caught somewhere between his typical near-melancholy neutral, and a forced mask of a smile. For a moment, the smile dropped.

“He's dead, Carlos,” he answered flatly.

Carlos grimaced. “No but—what about... you have those bloodstones, don't you? Can't you... I don't know, can you do anything with those?” he asked. “You brought his bloodstones, too, can't you do anything with—”

“No. He's dead,” Cecil insisted. “It's—fine. We all die, eventually. Even you, even Kevin, even me. That's not even the important part. We need to focus on what we're doing while we're alive , that's the part that matters.”

Casting a glance toward Kevin's prone body, Carlos asked a question he didn't particularly want the answer to. But it would tell him something for sure. “What... what should we be um, focusing on then, Cecil?”

Cecil replied, “Glad you asked. We need to get this place fixed up, did you see the way your coworkers ran, before?” He shook his head. “That was the most unorganized escape attempt I've ever seen, and I'll have you know, I've seen a few of them.”

He didn't dare ask whether the escapes had been away from him, or something else, but Carlos tried to return to the earlier subject. “We should...do something about Kevin though, shouldn't we?”

Now Cecil looked toward his brother, as well. “I suppose. If it would make you happy—would that make you happy, Carlos?” He looked back at Carlos, and with what seemed like an excessive effort, he smiled.

Carlos' blood ran cold. He answered, voice shaking, “Yeah—yes. That would...make me happy, Cecil. Please. Let's... do something about Kevin.”

By now, he was completely winging it. Cecil's behavior did nothing but cement more and more that this wasn't going to be a matter of trying to reason with him. Something had changed about him, maybe permanently. Maybe there was nothing that he could even do with Kevin that could fix anything—there probably wasn't.

It was all he could think to do, though. So Carlos rose shakily to his feet, staggering toward Kevin's body, still laid out on the table and half-bound. Cecil watched him like a curiosity, like there was something he didn't quite understand.

“You look hurt,” he finally said, as though only just noticing.

Carlos replied anxiously, “It's not that bad.” He wasn't sure what made him say it, maybe it would be a sign of weakness to admit. He'd already said it once.

Kevin lay limp on the table in front of him, finally unmoving after so much had been done to him. He still looked eerily like Cecil, though his hair was cut short, his eyes still open like gaping black holes. It slowly dawned on Carlos that Cecil had changed somewhat to match more closely; the color had bled from his hair, or maybe he'd fixed it somehow?

He wasn't sure, and wasn't sure what that meant, and wasn't sure he wanted to ask.

All that came clearly to mind was something Cecil had said before:

In truth, Cecil could have been Kevin, and Kevin could have been him.

Carlos wondered at whether Kevin ever would have been kind, or ever was kind, but all he had known was their one brief interaction. There was no comparison, no 'before' picture to go with the 'after'. To tell him what would happen to Cecil.

Or just how dangerous he would become.

He sidled up beside Carlos, close enough to press against him; the familiar tingle between the two of them was present as ever. Carlos tried to pretend they weren't touching.

Slowly, Cecil reached out to touch the screwdriver still jutting from his brother's third eye. He considered it carefully, deliberately, and then all at once he grabbed the handle and jerked it out in one quick movement. Only a small trickle of blood came out after it.

“He's fairly badly damaged, but I imagine there's something of use here,” Cecil remarked, continuing to look over Kevin's body. He reached up to examine his face, and Carlos watched as he dug his fingers into one of the dead man's eye sockets, with no hesitation.

Now gagging, Carlos was forced to look away as Cecil tore Kevin's remaining robotic eye out of its socket. Cecil hummed and examined it a moment, and before he knew what was happening, Carlos found the bloody eye shoved into his hand, still attached to a number of probably important—now severed—veins.

He dropped the eyeball. It bounced on the floor.

“What are you doing?” Cecil asked, accusing. “Pick it up. You're a scientist, right? You can tell me if there's anything usable in that eyeball.”

Despite himself, Carlos couldn't form words; he just shook his head.

Cecil frowned at him, an exaggerated frown as he demanded, “Pick it up. Come on, Carlos—you agreed with me before. We need to work on improving this place. You're in charge of the technology, got it?”

“I—I'm not that kind of—” he began.

“Nonsense. You're a scientist, and I know you're very smart. And gorgeous.” He whisked the eyeball up off the floor again with a tentacle, passing it into his own hands before carefully pressing it into Carlos' hands again. Cecil moved in to pin Carlos against the table so he wouldn't attempt to move away or let go of the eye again. “You can do it for me, right, my perfect scientist? Fix that eye up, improve it, even—here. I'll even get you another.”

Delicately, Cecil reached with a pair of tentacles to pry Kevin's third eye open, tearing the stitches straight through the heavily scarred tissue of his eyelid. Once the eye was open, however, Cecil jerked back as if burned, and for a moment, appeared extremely unsettled.

Curious despite himself, Carlos looked to see what had happened, and saw that Kevin's third eye had never been replaced. It was glassy, unblinking, with a hole through it slightly off-center. But it still had that same non-color to it that he'd seen in Cecil's own third eye, that sort of maybe-white, possibly-black, perhaps-purple, only with a fading golden sheen.

“Oh. Nobody... replaced that one...” Cecil spoke in a sort of dreamy voice, and the sound snapped Carlos' attention away from Kevin; Cecil was stumbling back, away from the visual. Carlos considered it was probably safe to abandon the robotic eye on the side of the table, and he watched Cecil for several long moments, weighing possibilities.

If he ran while Cecil was dazed, he might have a chance to escape. He probably wouldn't, but he might.

If he moved in to help Cecil, it might solidify that he was an ally. Make his current situation—unsafe as it was—just a little bit safer.

If he didn't decide quickly, Cecil's actions were going to decide for him. He settled on trying to speak, voice shaky for a moment as he found it again. “Cecil? Are you with me?”

Recognition dawned momentarily on his boyfriend's face; he nodded, a series of quick jerking motions, and sunk to his knees on the floor. “Carlos...? Carlos, what's...?”

At his change in tone, Carlos started toward him. Maybe there was a chance in snapping him out of it, yet.

Everyone would be counting on it.

“You told me about that Smiling God thing—Cecil, I think it's gone after you. I don't know, you were acting really—weird. You're back with me though, right?” his words poured out quickly, he kept about a foot between them, but came close enough to try and look Cecil in the eyes. His focus was slowly coming back.

Cecil nodded, uncertain. “I... I'm with you. What happened to Kevin—why is it...?”

Again, he couldn't finish his sentence. Cecil doubled over, pressing his hands to his head as though in pain, and Carlos couldn't help the feeling nagging at him: the thing that had torn apart his friend, that wasn't his boyfriend. His boyfriend, his Cecil, was fighting it. Without thinking of his own preservation, Carlos was at his side, taking Cecil's hands in his.

“Listen, okay, I'll explain more. I'll explain everything. Just listen to my voice while I'm talking, right? Focus on me or something, I think? Try and—I don't know. Fight it?” Carlos tried a few lines from books he'd read, hoping maybe something like that actually applied to this situation. What was anyone supposed to tell a guy with a weird parasitic god in his head?

Cecil nodded, and swore he'd fight, as Carlos started explaining how everything had happened. How Rachelle had been acting, how she'd turned on Kevin out of the blue and taken even him by surprise—as he carried on explaining, he felt his own memory at the incident growing foggier. Like he could barely focus on the very things he'd seen with his own eyes, what seemed like only moments earlier.

He threaded his fingers with Cecil's, feeling himself relax as the words stopped coming to him. What had he been talking about? It felt like a million miles away.

“Carlos, are you feeling alright?” Cecil asked, voice laced with concern, even though his crooked smile had come back with a vengeance.

“What...? Yeah, I think so,” Carlos murmured, “What's going on?”

Cecil just smiled on. “Nothing. I love you.”

He nodded and returned the sentiment.

 

* * *

 

When Kevin stirred on the basement floor with every bone in his body lit on fire, nobody was there to notice. It was dark, the cement was cold, a comfort against his aching head, but barely a comfort.

Fragments of the past—how long had it been?—only fragments really remained, and flitted out of his memory as his thoughts reorganized: he was real, this was his home, and his body really existed. He couldn't really remember the Void, though he assumed he'd visited. He must have gone somewhere, or nowhere. Anywhere.

Vaguely, he snapped back to the moment where he'd seen his brother vanish away. Kevin had cried out, he thought. Now, he wasn't so sure what he'd done when he thought for a moment that maybe, he'd be the only brother left.

But one thing he knew he'd done; he'd cleaned up Cecil's bloodstones and tried to hide the evidence. He couldn't fathom why, when he woke on the floor where he'd left, his own circle remained unbroken.

The displaced stone hadn't even been corrected. It was like Cecil was too terrified to touch a thing—he'd left it. Left the evidence. Left the last of Kevin's red blood to dry to brown on the stones and the floor. He rolled onto his back with a groan, and tried to sit up. Get a look at himself. Figure out where he'd been injured. It was obvious enough that nobody else would.

Flickers of recognition crossed his mind, realization that his blood wasn't red anymore—he would have celebrated, would have considered it a victory if he could think to do so, past the haze of pain and disorientation. Even as the room settled back into being, his own head was spinning. Maybe it was the blood loss—he was covered in gashes, not quite like Cecil's had been, but bleeding with the same foul black ink.

It had to be blood loss. Or maybe he was just tired—or it had to be something . He vowed to forget about the issue completely, and tried to force himself to his feet.

His trip back upstairs was a difficult one; his legs shook and he couldn't quite tell where he was going. The basement was dark. He tripped once or twice. But he made it up the stairs, up into the living room, hoping to at least be greeted by his mother's familiar hiss, his brother's defensive remarks. He'd even be glad to hear about that rotten prophecy again.

(Kevin thought he knew the words even better than his brother, because he couldn't stop dwelling on them. “This child is of great importance. He will become the voice of a civilization, trusted and loved above all others. The course of history will be his to write.”

It was a typical obscure Nightvalian birth prophecy. The translation was pretty simple: Cecil was to be the next Voice of Night Vale. No prophecy followed for Kevin.)

Instead, he found both Cecil and Earl in the living room, chatting like nothing was wrong in the world. They sat together in one armchair, the redhead comfortable in Cecil's lap and still wearing his boyscout uniform. Neither noticed Kevin; they kept talking like he wasn't there.

“Well, I think she'll come back. You said she's gone missing before—a couple days, even. She's probably just taking a little longer.” Earl's voice was reassuring. It sounded like their mother had gone missing again—so Kevin wouldn't be greeting her, either.

Typical.

Cecil sighed, looked up at the ceiling. “I don't know, she's never been gone more than a day or two. Do you think—...maybe I need to report her missing?”

“That might help. Did she say she was even leaving this time?” Earl asked.

He didn't get to hear the answer because at that moment, Kevin had gotten his hands around the nearest projectile and threw it—the rotary phone came flying at the pair of boys, but fell short, cracking when it slammed onto the wooden floor instead.

Now, they were definitely looking in Kevin's direction as he tried to find his voice again. His words came out shaky, but as loud as he could muster. “You... you didn't even try and f-find me, did you?!”

Cecil rose to his feet, displacing Earl in the process. He made his way toward his brother, hands out, ready to grab him if he had to. “Kevin—calm down. Look, sit down—”

He grabbed the next thing off the table, a phonebook that collided with a much more satisfying smack against Cecil's shoulder. “Don't tell me to calm d-down!” he cried. He threw a notepad, hell, he threw the little pen for jotting notes, and then he ran out of things to grab off the table and looked around for a frantic moment for more.

Cecil just shielded himself until his brother ran out of ammunition, used to it—and took his opportunity to advance while Kevin frantically tried to find more. “I said calm down. Don't make me make you, Kevin.” He grabbed his brother's shoulders, and Kevin tried to shake him off, but he was bloodied, he was weak, and he couldn't have fought Cecil back in that moment if he'd even tried.

“Why?” he whined, “Why calm down? Why? You didn't even—you d-didn't even look for me. Nobody looked for me.” Kevin's voice cracked as he spoke, hot tears started to run down his cheeks, black and thick as blood. “Why didn't anyone look for me? ”

Earl spoke next, accusing: “You didn't look for Cecil when he vanished! You sent your doppelganger and said it was Cecil! For like a week!”

He looked in Earl's direction, betrayal etched into his face. “You s-said you'd never tell! I thought he was dead!”

“I thought I was kissing my boyfriend!” Earl cried.

In the exchange, Cecil had gone quiet, staring at Kevin who by now leaned against his hands for support. His legs were shaking. His body was covered, head to toe, in blood and cuts. But in his eyes, there was that same vicious look he'd always worn when he broke Cecil's things, when he ruined his recordings, stole his friends—apparently, stole his boyfriend.

And something snapped.

Kevin didn't have time to react before his brother threw him across the room, tentacles coming out of hiding one by one as he advanced on him. “You—that's the last straw!” he bellowed, his voice taking on a distorted quality that stopped Earl dead in his tracks before he could run over to intervene. Cecil kept yelling, “You don't get to come back here, asking why I never looked for you—you know why I didn't! I don't want you here, Kevin!”

“Cecil—Ceec—stop!” Kevin cried, voice shaking as his brother took a hold of him between four different tentacles, pinning him, suspended, against the wall behind him. The drywall cracked where Kevin had slammed into it; every bone in his body felt broken, on fire, the blood in his veins was fire as well.

He tried to stay awake as Cecil pinned him, the pressure making everything hurt worse.

Cecil yelled in his face, close enough that the volume would have hurt, even unamplified—but with the way his voice had changed now, it was worse. “Nobody wants you, Kevin! You just—break things. And break things. And break things. You're jealous, you're bitter, you're destructive—I'm sick of you!”

Kevin said nothing—he clamped his eyes shut and grit his teeth as Cecil started laying into him, tentacles packing a harder punch than fists—swung with more certainty than he'd ever had. He wanted to do damage, and he was.

It was Earl's voice that interrupted the barrage of punches, Earl's cry for mercy. “Cecil, stop! You're gonna kill him, stop, stop it!”

Cecil reeled around when Earl grabbed him, shoving him clean off his feet with a well-placed tentacle to the face. “Then let me!” he snapped.

Then he realized, as Earl looked up at him with a fear he'd never seen on anyone's face before—the horror of someone faced with a situation they knew they couldn't win. Helpless. Terrified. Earl slowly reached up to touch his cheek where Cecil had hit him, and said nothing.

He dropped Kevin, spun around to face his boyfriend. “I'm... sorry, Earl. I shouldn't have...” he trailed off into silence as the boyscout's expression hardened.

“You were gonna kill Kevin,” he hissed. “He's your brother, Cecil—and my friend.”

“He kissed you!” Cecil argued. “And—and nobody ever told me!”

Earl scowled, “He thought you were dead and—and it was fucked up, and when he found out you weren't dead, he told me. And even if he didn't ever say what happened—you still don't kill people for that, Cecil!”

Cecil deflated, his certainty draining away with each moment. “But. He. And you. And.”

“What's got into you, Cecil?” Earl whined. “You were never like this before. You used to be the nice brother.”

He started to argue, “I still am—”

Kevin's coughing interrupted him. Slowly, gingerly, he tried to push himself up off the floor, at least to sit himself up. The other two looked over, worry etched into Earl's features, and a quiet anger on Cecil. He rose up enough to look at them, and slowly cracke d open not just two eyes, but a third.

Blood poured down his face when his third eye tore itself open on his forehead, but what he felt more than the sting of tearing flesh was the burn that followed.

Earl was the only one who cried out.

 

* * *

 

 

**Synopsis:**

 

Section one: After being left alone with Cecil, Carlos is initially terrified to act. He stays trapped in Cecil's grip, too tight and painful on his broken rib, until he builds up the courage to ask Cecil to loosen up a bit. This has the opposite effect; Cecil tightens his grip, swears he'll never let Carlos go, and this causes worse pain. It's only after he's desperate to be released and visibly in pain that Cecil actually lets go.  
Whenever Carlos tries to ask Cecil if he's alright, or try to get through to him, he gets oddly oblivious answers. Things like how Cecil is quite happy because Carlos is there, or trying to tell Carlos how much he loves him. This seems almost threatening, because he nags at Carlos to guess how much he loves him--then when Carlos says "a lot", Cecil says that's not nearly a big enough guess. Tells Carlos he loves him more than anything. Then, he asks if Carlos loves him--obviously, there's only one proper answer here. Cecil's forcefulness makes Carlos too afraid to say anything, but he nods and it seems good enough. Cecil kisses him, with Rachelle's blood still on his mouth, and Carlos finally can't hold up the charade any longer; he pulls away, gagging. Cecil sees this as a sign he was lying about loving him, and tells him he'll get used to the blood. Carlos by this point is crying, miserable and trying to find some way out of this mess--he ends up suggesting to Cecil that they check on Kevin, as a distraction.  
The distraction doesn't immediately work, because Cecil just replies that his brother is dead and brushes it off. He tells Carlos to focus on being alive and what they're doing, rather than Kevin's body--and as Carlos asks for clarification, the answer turns into a Strexian sort of reply: they need to fix up the place, and Cecil criticizes the escape by the others in the room, saying it was a pitiful excuse for an escape.  
Carlos, more certain now that something is seriously wrong, tries again to see if Kevin can serve as a distraction, and this time Cecil allows it. So Carlos gets up, walking over to check on Kevin's body, which is as still and unmoving as ever. As he makes his way over, Cecil remarks that he looks hurt, sounding as though he's only just noticed. Carlos lies and says he's fine.  
Looking down at Kevin, it dawns on Carlos that Cecil's hair color changed to match his. He files this away in case it's needed later, and considers the similarity between the twins in light of Cecil's own observations: in truth, Cecil could have been Kevin, and Kevin could have been him. He begins to suspect that whatever was possessing Kevin before, and Cecil now, may have been what changed Kevin to be cruel, and wonders if Cecil will be just as bad. Cecil comes over, uncomfortably close to Carlos as he pulls the screwdriver from Kevin's eye, and it's clear he's not really bleeding anymore. Cecil insists that something must be of use, and tears his remaining robotic eye out, passing it over to Carlos. Carlos drops it; Cecil insists that, as a scientist, he should know what to do with it, and coerces him into taking it again so he can improve the damaged eye, for the sake of its technology.  
He makes a move to pull out Kevin's third eye, but when he pries the eyelid open, Cecil realizes that his brother's third eye was never replaced. He reels backward, looking horrified, and Carlos thinks this is an opportunity to maybe get through to him. He asks Cecil if he's with him, to which Cecil replies confused and asking what's going on. Carlos considers this a sign that Cecil is back in control over whatever, and approaches him.  
As he tries to reassure Cecil and encourage his resistance against the Smiling God, he comes close enough to take Cecil's hands. Cecil asks him to explain what's going on, and even while he's explaining, Carlos feels his own thoughts going fuzzy and forgets what he was talking about.  
Now, Cecil is the one asking Carlos if he's alright. He replies that he's fine, asks what's going on, and Cecil says nothing. He smiles, and tells Carlos he loves him.

 

Section two: In the flashback, Kevin wakes on the floor of the basement, with his bloodstone circle still undisturbed. It seems as though nobody has done anything in his absence to try and clean up or even look for him; he takes some time to return to his senses and looks himself over since nobody else is going to. Kevin now has black blood like his brother, and like Cecil was, is covered in thick gashes from the incident. It seems that he's accomplished exactly what Cecil had before. But he feels like his whole body is on fire, he's miserable and in pain, and it doesn't seem so worth it anymore.  
He finally makes mention of the prophecy that Cecil received, word for word: "This child is of great importance. He will become the voice of a civilization, trusted and loved above all others. The course of history will be his to write." Which, of course, translates to Cecil being the next Voice of Night Vale, but sounds badass enough, no wonder Kevin is envious.  
Slowly, gracelessly, he makes his way upstairs in the hopes of finding someone glad to see him. Instead, he finds Cecil in the living room with Earl in his lap, and they're discussing the fact that the twins' mother has gone missing again. Cecil suggests that he might report her missing, and at this, Kevin loses it and grabs a rotary phone off its table, flinging it in his brother's direction. it misses, but Kevin cries out at them, anyway: nobody even tried to find him, did they?  
At first, Cecil tries to calm him down. Kevin keeps throwing shit at him, but he just shields himself and waits for it to end--it's clear that Cecil has dealt with this behavior from his brother, before. He grabs a hold of Kevin once he's run out of projectiles, and tries to calm him down, threatening to force him to calm down. Kevin by this point is crying, nasty bloody black tears, as he argues that nobody even tried looking for him, and asks why?  
Earl points out that Kevin never looked for Cecil when he vanished--but instead took his place and pretended to be him. It appears that during this time, Kevin attempted to take over his brother's relationship, even kissing Earl. Kevin doesn't try to deny this, but says that Earl swore to never tell, and Cecil watches the exchange, and something in him finally snaps.  
He whips out the tentacles, and flings Kevin across the room, slamming him into a wall so hard the drywall cracks. He stomps over, yelling at Kevin in an odd voice--it's clear now that the whole speaking for the Void thing has probably taken effect--and telling Kevin that he didn't want to look for him because he didn't want him there. Kevin pleads for his brother to let him go, but Cecil pins him to the wall, screaming in his face that nobody wants him--all Kevin ever does is break things, he's jealous, bitter, destructive, and Cecil is sick of him.  
Then he starts beating the shit out of Kevin, with both tentacles and fists, until Earl interrupts, crying out that Cecil is going to kill him if he doesn't stop.  
Cecil reels around and smacks Earl upside the head, knocking him flat on his ass--he apologizes for this, but doesn't apologize for trying to kill Kevin, arguing that he wants to go through with it. Earl comes to Kevin's defense, reminding Cecil that Kevin is his brother, and Earl's friend. Cecil argues that Kevin kissed him, but Earl insists that although it was shitty, Kevin had no idea at the time that Cecil was even still alive, and that he came clean as soon as he realized what happened.  
Finally, Cecil starts to calm down again, as he's talking to Earl, who insists that something about him has changed. He's become more violent--perhaps in connection to the incident with the Void--and Earl says that Cecil used to be the nice brother, but isn't anymore.  
Before Cecil can argue, Kevin tries to get back up, except when he opens his eyes, the third eye tears open on his forehead as well, and it's implied that the light of the Smiling God comes out, because Earl lets out a cry.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god, this chapter was so long the synopsis ran over limit. niiiice.
> 
> I hope u guys enjoy your extra long chapter hehe. as always, comments are awesome, let me know what you think! any theories? any fears of what might happen? anything really please you or really piss you off?
> 
> cheers


	37. Third Degree Burns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The flashback continues: Kevin learns something about his newest trick. Back in the present, a radio host sends out a call for help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops warning-heavy chapter again.
> 
> first section: blood, disemboweling, eye horror, death.
> 
> second section: blood, disemboweling.
> 
> synopsis to follow.

“Kevin! Kevin, stop!”

The light of the Smiling God burned from Kevin's third eye like a solar flare, emitting heat like the sun had fallen into the room with them—he was vaguely aware of his own screaming, barely louder in his ears than Earl's initial cry. It felt like he'd left his body. He couldn't make it stop.

A large black object made contact with his face—he couldn't make it out very well but it felt like one of Cecil's tentacles, swung out in attack. The smack knocked him onto his side, where he hit the floor and somewhat regained his senses.

At least enough to try and force his third eye shut again.

Cecil's voice was now the only sound save for his own heart pounding in his ears, but his words were incoherent, blurring together into a jumbled mess that made no sense. The room pitched and seemed to spin as Kevin tried to recapture contact with his own physical body—he knew he was attached still, he felt the pain, but it was all he could do just to try and blink.

He finally clamped his hands over his third eye. The blazing light that sprung forth, stopped behind his palms, charred his skin but didn't escape. Kevin carefully opened his other, ordinary eyes.

The room was blurry—his glasses were still missing from the ritual—but he could make out the two figures in the room, his brother rushing to Earl's side, the suspiciously dark charring on the wooden floor.

(Was it really that hot? His own hands ached the longer he held them over his eye, but surely they'd have lit on fire if the light was strong enough. They didn't.)

Cecil's words started to reorganize into coherence; Kevin realized he was coming back into reality, himself. The same word repeated over and over as he called out: “Earl? Earl! Hey, come on, Earl? Say something. Anything. Something...? Earl?”

Kevin squinted, hoping to make out what was going on. Earl looked sun burnt. Most likely, he was worse than sun burnt. As it slowly dawned on Kevin what he'd done, his first impulse was to run.

His legs failed him when he tried to rise, but the movement brought Cecil's righteous fury back on him in a heartbeat. He flinched before the tentacle even made contact with his face, and crashed to the floor once again, his hands jerking away to try and catch himself.

“Don't you dare!” Cecil howled as if he hadn't just caused the mistake, himself. “Shut that off!”

Trying to push himself back up, Kevin finally found the strength to speak—he considered only for a moment before he answered, and didn't try to claim innocence, didn't try to explain himself. He heard the word like someone else said it through his mouth: “No.”

“What the hell do you mean, no?” Cecil snapped. “You hurt Earl. Cover that light or so help me—”

He let out a surprised cry as Kevin's fist connected with his face, snapping the bridge of his glasses. Then, again, Kevin hit him. And again. He kept at it until Cecil managed to throw him off, now nursing a bloody nose and broken pieces of glass in his cheeks.

The room was swirling, but Kevin righted himself enough to look in Cecil's direction, and try something he hadn't, yet: he threw as much of his influence into that light as he could. The aimless fire reorganized itself; the Smiling God greeted Cecil like a long-awaited friend.

There wasn't even a cry for help.

When he realized that Cecil wasn't attacking him again, Kevin cautiously covered the light with his hands—he would learn later that his eyelids hadn't developed immediately, anyway—and dared to guess at what his influence might have done.

Instantly, he wished he hadn't.

Cecil, who had moments earlier been crying for mercy for his boyfriend, now knelt by him with bloody hands. Kevin still realized, blurry vision and all, when Cecil tore the heart from Earl's chest.

He watched in silent horror as Cecil lifted it up to his mouth and took a bite.

At that moment, Kevin knew: whatever happened, this Smiling God had made him dangerous.

In the months to follow, Kevin remained vague about what had happened. It took a few days for Cecil to return to himself; by then he'd cleaned the bloody mess that had once been Earl. A few stains stayed on the floor. He told Cecil that Earl had died in a bloodstone ritual gone wrong.

It was an easy enough explanation. It happened all the time. Kevin looked away from the bloodstains on the floor and told nothing to his brother, or to their mother who returned a few days later and hissed at him more loudly than he'd ever heard.

As if she knew what hid behind the stitches he'd sewn into his own forehead. A promise to never let that foul light out again.

Cecil started interning for Leonard Burton, and in some sense, normalcy was returned. He was the twin with the prophecy, the voice that everyone would love above all else, the only one who'd ever really mattered. Kevin hid at home and tried to break off contact with any friend he still knew.

A few months later, Earl Harlan was seen wandering around town again, uninjured and whole.

* * *

 

Avery scanned over the notes before they began their broadcast. Nervous as they were, their voice did not shake, it couldn't shake, not right now.

“Hello, sunny University of Desert Bluffs,” they began, cheerful. “Now, I wouldn't normally break schedule like this, but I'm sure you'll understand—this is an emergency broadcast sort of thing.

Some of you may have noticed by now that we've got some new guests here—the Masked Army has dropped by with our missing peers and professors. Drs. Victor and Kayali are down with them, keeping everything organized, I assure you. We also welcome back Dr. Crewe—he's spending some time in the old wellness center resting up, but he's alright. As far as I'm aware? Nobody who went out with the Masked Army actually got hurt worse than some pretty bad dehydration and sunburns.

Which, I'm sure you realize by now, means I lied to you before—when I told you how the Masked Army was organizing against us. What I shared was not of my own volition back then, but now I come to you, my fellow students, as a free radio host.”

They cleared their throat as punctuation, and flipped to the next page of notes. Theo had written up the basic draft; Avery fixed it afterward. Made it sound more natural, more casual. It was an important balance of trying not to panic the students, and trying to get across a point that could not be missed.

“Things have changed here at the University of Desert Bluffs—I'm sure you all know that already. It's been a very crazy time since we all found ourselves in this bizarre hellish desert otherworld, and certainly no better that we've spent all of this time terrorized by that tyrant—I'm sure you need not hear his name again.

Well, I have some good news, and some bad news.

The great news today, Desert Bluffs, is that we are no longer dealing with Kevin. Our very own professor Rachelle Baker saw to it this very day—less than even a half an hour ago—that he would not live to see another day. In the process, she lost her own life, and for that sacrifice, I believe a moment of silence is necessary.”

Avery allowed for not quite a minute to pass in silence. They knew nothing of the situation that had led to her finally turning on Kevin; she'd been his biggest supporter for a while. Either way, the attack had knocked out one threat. Which, of course, left the other.

That was the report that Avery had to ready themself to give.

“Thank you for that moment. Rachelle is going to be sorely missed, along with all of our other faculty and students who are no longer with us—and we will have our chance to clean up this school, and bury what remains. But that time is not now.

Unfortunately, during the chaos that led to Kevin's death, a man who we understand to be his brother has come to this same University—it seems, with the same intents. Although he was able to follow the Masked Army to this point without incident, upon discovering that his brother had been killed, he became extremely violent. I don't believe I need to explain how.

At present, there are members of the Masked Army waiting outside of the lab room which this man is contained inside of—we have been trying to keep the situation contained. However, in the process of escaping from him, we lost one of our own—you may recall from my earlier broadcast that we have recently regained professor Carlos, the chemistry teacher that I'm sure many of you have seen in the halls at the very least.

It seems as though he has become the hostage for this newest threat—attempts to rescue him have not been made yet. We do fear the consequences of provoking this strange man—this monster that has taken one of our own captive. We fear that he may be as dangerous, or more dangerous than his brother.

That is the purpose of this radio call. I know that some of you offered to assist with my last call—and for that, I'm quite thankful. However, the time has come again, fellow students. We need to come to the aid of our professor.

We need to band together for the good of this school.

Our will is not that of this Smiling God.”

They allowed a few moments' silence, hoping the broadcast sounded as driven and confident as they tried to make it. The truth is, nobody was sure whether stepping in to rescue Carlos was going to end up killing him. Dr. Kayali had stayed by the door a while; she knew she still heard Carlos' voice when she finally left to attend to the Masked Army.

That had been only some ten minutes ago. They would have been willing to bet that he was still alive, although what condition he might be in, left alone with that man—it was anyone's guess. Still, it was better than to try to rescue him and have him killed.

Avery knew well enough they were asking for people to enlist in a suicide mission. More than anything, a larger number may just serve as bait, to distract.

“Please, if anyone wants to help rescue our professor—my friend, and friend to many of you—please, come to my radio booth. I'll take any help I can get.

For now, I think that's all I've got to say. I hope to see some of you.

Goodbye again, Desert Bluffs. See ya.”

Avery turned the microphone off, and buried their face in their hands. They couldn't imagine what must have been going on in that room. What rotten things Carlos was being subjected to. Quite honestly, they were sure they didn't want to imagine.

Shortly after the broadcast ended, the doors to the lab opened.

Several members of the Masked Army, startled at the sudden movement, turned with weapons raised to take out any possible threat. But no attack greeted them. Instead, Carlos exited the lab for a moment, pushing a wheeled metal cart.

Atop the cart, Kevin lay limp and half-dissected, chest cracked open, blackened viscera visible but mostly still present. Conspicuously missing, somebody had taken out the dead man's heart, and only that; everything else was almost untouched.

Alicia prepared to speak, but hesitated, unsure of whether their voice would injure the scientist. This wasn't like communicating out in the desert; they couldn't write words into the sand, and it seemed that Carlos was waiting for no such thing.

He handed a paper to the nearest guard, and reentered the lab, leaving Kevin in the hallway as he locked the door once again.

The note passed its way toward Alicia, the de facto leader while Doug attended to planning with the professors.

They unfolded the message and it read in old Nightvalian, in Cecil's hurried handwriting:

'Burn the body.'

Alicia passed the note back to its original recipient, and made their way to Kevin's side. The brother they'd certainly known better than they'd ever known Cecil; he'd always been a bit of a mess. A bit of an asshole. It stung seeing him laid out and cold, anyway.

Trying to stay delicate with oversized hands, Alicia reached out to press his eyelids closed. At least he deserved that dignity in death—but when they touched their fingertips to his forehead to close his third eye, he was still warm.

They looked to their subordinates, no questioning expression visible behind any of their masks; it was just as well. Nobody would have had the answer, either way.

Quietly, Alicia broke the heavy silence.

'Kevin?'

His eyelids fluttered.

'Kevin, are you with me?'

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Synopsis:
> 
> part 1:  
> We return to Kevin being yelled at by Cecil for the whole Smiling God thing, to stop--he tries, and it's not an immediate success, as he sort of drifts in and out of awareness of the world around him. Kevin does at length manage to cover his third eye, and this stops the light.  
> Cecil moves to help Earl, though Kevin can't really tell how much damage has been done because he's half-blind without his glasses. Cecil is crying out for Earl to wake up, however, and Kevin realizes that it must be pretty bad--he tries to flee, to protect himself.  
> Cecil grabs him and in the process of flinging him, causes Kevin to accidentally stop covering the light again. When Cecil yells at him to turn it off, he refuses--not just because it's difficult, but he decides he doesn't want to. While Cecil is surprised at this refusal, Kevin tries to turn the tables--he attacks Cecil, now, until he's thrown off.  
> Before Cecil can attack back, Kevin tries a new trick: he puts his influence behind the light of the Smiling God. It has... exactly as bad of a result as any reader might expect: Cecil goes nuts and disembowels Earl, thus proving that Kevin actually wasn't the first crazy fuck to try decorating with body parts. As he watches Cecil tear Earl apart and eat his heart, Kevin realizes he can't ever let the light of the Smiling God out again.  
> He sews up his third eye. He cleans up whatever is left of Earl's body, and tries to clean the house so that once Cecil returns to his senses, Kevin can tell him that Earl died in a freak bloodstone accident, and nothing else. He lies to everyone about what's happened, but even when their mother returns, she seems more afraid of Kevin as if she's aware of what's changed about him.  
> Cecil resumes life as usual, presumably sad over Earl's death though it's not exactly mentioned. He goes on to start interning for Leonard Burton, making moves to fulfill his prophecy, while Kevin instead isolates himself and breaks ties with most of his friends to protect them.  
> A few months later, Earl Harlan is seen around town again, unharmed.
> 
> part 2:  
> Avery begins a broadcast to the University--now calling it the "University of Desert Bluffs", suggesting that the name changes do become real not just after Cecil makes them, but after Kevin does so as well.  
> They explain the identity of the Masked Army to their listeners, and apologize for lying about the whole Masked Army thing before, explaining that Kevin had them under threat to force them to lie--but now they are able to report as a free radio host. However, they seem to just be reading words that were written by Theo, rewritten somewhat to sound more colloquial and more like Avery's own words.  
> It's implied that they're just serving as a mouthpiece for the professors, now. Avery reveals the news that Kevin has died--which is great news--but also that Rachelle died in the process of killing him--terrible news. Though they aren't sure what to make of her attack, they allot a moment of silence in her honor. After this, Avery asks listeners to participate in an attempt to rescue Carlos from Cecil's grasp, explaining that Cecil seems to have the same horrible intents as Kevin, and they don't want to lose another one of their own.  
> Avery knows it's a suicide mission, but knowingly asks people to participate anyway, in the hopes that Carlos might be saved.  
> Elsewhere in the University, Carlos wheels Kevin out of the lab on a metal cart and leaves him with the Masked Army, as well as a note. They're too stunned to respond quickly and try to keep Carlos from returning to Cecil; he reenters the lab again. Kevin seems to have been partially dissected, although the only thing missing from his cracked-open torso is his heart.  
> Alicia reads the message and it was clearly written by Cecil, in old Nightvalian: "Burn the body."  
> They express some sadness at Kevin's death, despite everything, and close his eyelids as a sign of respect. However, on touching him, he's still warm.  
> Alicia calls his name, and Kevin's eyelids flutter.
> 
>  
> 
> aaand that's a wrap. woo.
> 
> so here's the deal: I'm going in for a surgery on Monday. I don't know if I'm going to have any additional chapters posted before then. if I don't have anything posted by Monday, it may be a considerable length of time before I get anything else posted. I don't really know how recovery is going to go, etc. I may have more posted after surgery, I may not for a while.
> 
> at any rate, I hope you guys enjoy. I've been having fun writing this, it's been a great exercise in laying complicated plots, I guess. haha.
> 
> comments are always appreciated. thanks. <3


	38. Organization in Chaos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Night Vale, a new group gathers with an important mission in mind. Somewhere else, Kevin misses his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprisingly, no real warnings this time? this is a pretty tame chapter.

The young woman standing in front of the radio station had seen another, just one other that gave off the sort of vibes as this one. The Voice of Night Vale's chosen establishment wasn't like the other stations that sat around the town to broadcast code and drying paint.

As a girl, she couldn't have identified what it was that set anything apart, but after Dana had called her—and she wasn't the only one Dana had called on—Tamika began to understand more of the full story. At least, as much of the full story as anybody understood.

Old woman Josie hadn't followed them to the newest Night Vale, just yet; she heard that the Erikas were taking her on a trip in the meantime. Whatever that meant, Tamika followed when Dana told her it was an emergency.

Looking at the newest base of Night Vale Community Radio, she understood the story she'd been told, more obscure than any classic literature she'd breezed through as a girl: the city of Night Vale was more of an idea than a single location.

Tamika pushed the door open and entered, finding the current host of the station out in the lobby and already surrounded by a number of other figures who'd arrived before she had.

(She took her time coming, after all. This new place had a cute used bookstore, and it wasn't even infested with librarians yet—she'd bought like, a dozen, at least. Old books, that is. Not librarians.)

Megan Wallaby noticed her first, waving in enthusiasm as Tamika stepped into the studio. “Hey! Tamika, hey! You made it!”

(Megan had learned how to speak well; she'd settled into her transplant body over the years and by now, it almost felt like her own. The dress she wore was custom-made—they sort of had to be, for the massive stature of her body—it was covered in daisies, matching the updated flower tattoos on her arms, and the color of her pale yellow hat.)

Mx. Mitchell looked toward the door, next, half anticipating some new surprise—the arrival of another pair of Erikas later in the conversation had really set them on edge that anything might come from Night Vale. But Tamika just looked like an ordinary young black woman, of a short and stocky build, carrying a backpack full of books.

She tipped an imaginary hat in the direction of the crowd. “Pleased to see you've all made it as well. We are, after all, adrift in quite some shifting world these days. Has Maureen shown up yet?”

Dana shook her head, “Afraid not. I did tell her before leaving that she might want to get out of there—nobody's going to keep listening to her broadcasts once everything calms down. I don't remember what she said...something about wanting to just get back to school and forget the interning? Which... I didn't get, she's not even an intern anymore but—ah, you know Maureen.” She chuckled, and leaned back in her seat again.

Tamika nodded. “The Exodus has been an impressive one, certainly.” She strolled through the group—all seated on folding chairs—and walked up to Mx. Mitchell, looking them over a moment before she thrust out her hand. “I hear you're the newest speaker in the senseless night, would that be the case?”

They watched Tamika's hand a moment before reaching out to shake it. “I... guess that's the case? It sort of fell that way, anyway. Cecil left a few weeks ago—haven't heard a thing from him, but uh, your friends have been filling me in.”

She smiled and scanned through the gathered crowd. Dana sat directly to Mx. Mitchell's right, with one pale white Erika to their left, hovering over their seat like an inverted silhouette of wings and too many mouths. The Erikas stayed together, seated one after the next, and nobody else sat beside them. Megan sat next to a silent Roger, a few empty seats, and one hell of a nervous intern who must have worked for Mx. Mitchell, because Tamika had never seen him before.

At the empty seats, the smile fell from her face. “Where's Janice?” she asked, scanning Megan's face for answers, since she was the only one from that side of the room making any sort of eye contact.

She shook her head, “I don't think she's coming. Her dad said a whole lot of... stuff. Pretty bad stuff, I guess.”

Roger finally piped up, eyes trained on his feet as he spoke, “It wasn't her dad. I mean, he's always Mr. conspiracy theories, but... no, her mom doesn't wanna see her like, never grow old or something... I don't know. I tried. She said she was gonna sneak out but—...yeah.”

Tamika scowled. “Really? That's detestable. I would have expected better. We're capable individuals, this is not some dangerous mission or anything. Honestly, how many generations have followed Cecil before?” She paused. “That was a rhetorical question. My point is—if Janice wanted to follow, she should have been allowed.”

“Alright, I hate to interrupt but I'm still a bit lost,” Mx. Mitchell remarked. “What exactly is it that you people are all here for? You just... follow Cecil like some weird groupies or something, all over the world?”

Dana answered first, “It's not like that, Mx. Mitchell. We're not... groupies, we're all his friends.” She frowned, scanning through the group; there were less people here than she had anticipated. “I'm just concerned. You did tell me that he's been gone for a while—I haven't been able to contact him, either. I've been to the desert otherworld before, which is where I'm fairly sure he's gone. Phones work there! There has to be some other reason for the silence.”

“It isn't really like Cecil to be quiet for very long,” Tamika agreed, finally taking her seat next to Megan, who wouldn't stop gesturing her over. Roger looked at her for a moment, then back down at his shoes. He'd never been one of the more outgoing members of the militia, as a kid, and the ginger stayed just as shy as ever, now.

Mx. Mitchell looked over the gathered group; it sounded like they must have been most of what was even expected. Maybe an old woman might show up sometime—the Josie they'd spoken of, who knew the angels. Mx. Mitchell doubted that would change very much.

“So... you're all here, what is... what do you even hope to accomplish?” they asked.

“That was Dana's plan in the first place,” Tamika pointed out. “I believe we owe her the floor, in this discussion.”

They gestured to Dana to speak, but she took a moment to organize her words. Dana hadn't ever gotten perfect at public speaking—with former mayor Pamela Winchill to do her press conferences (emergency or otherwise), she got used to less gatherings.

So it was a bit awkward with everyone staring at her, now.

“Well,” she murmured, “I think if we want to make sure everything's alright—we might need to go in there after him. And...that's why I'm here. I'm the only one who knows how to get back out once we go in after him.”

Mx. Mitchell grimaced. “Well, that sure sounds safe. What's a mayor doing running vigilante missions full of college kids anyway—no insult, guys.”

The only one who seemed vaguely insulted was Roger. The others shrugged it off, and Tamika spoke up to fill the silence. “It's part of all our duty protecting Night Vale. Cecil can't just stay gone forever.”

“Why? What happens?” they asked.

The tall black Erika answered in a way that the others understood somehow, a ripple of awareness that moved across the gathered group without a single word needing to be spoken:

That's when the story ends.

 

* * *

 

Kevin had never agreed to the removal of his eyes.

Lauren—or someone like Lauren, some copy of the same scenario playing out in loops through time because time was weird— had arrived in Kevin's booth with the suggestion, like it was as simple as updating employee uniforms, or an outdated hairstyle.

He peered up from his copy, gawking over the gold frames of his glasses. The [weather](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43XsuVxyRIM) played, melancholy in the background, and Kevin gripped the stack of paper. “Can this wait?”

“I just think we can do better for you than glasses, Kevin,” she insisted. “Listen—we've been doing a lot of work on prosthetics—and I just think... what a wonderful message that would send to all of Strex if you—the Voice of Desert Bluffs—would show your support for our new technology!” Her words were always injected with that over-enthusiasm that turned his stomach, but he sighed and turned from his microphone to face her—she wouldn't drop this.

“My eyes work just fine, Lauren,” he insisted, adjusting his glasses. “That's what these are for. And honestly—it's been how long now? It's not like my vision is getting any worse.”

She scoffed at his dismissal. “It's not about whether you can get by with those defective, damaged eyes of yours—it's about the message you're sending! Nobody is going to trust Strex brand prosthetic eyes if you won't, Kevin—you know everyone loves you.”

Kevin laughed, “Well maybe I'm not trying to send the same message as you. I don't want your prosthetic eyes. I've seen them—have they even gotten out of beta yet?”

Her expression hardened. “Well, that's why we need willing volunteers, Kevin.”

“Count me out.” He turned back to his microphone as the weather ended, ready to resume his broadcast. Lauren launched a full mug of coffee at his equipment, and it crackled with a horrifying burst of electricity before shutting off, drenched and short-circuited.

Kevin stared in horrified silence at the dead sound equipment, then spun to face Lauren—now this was why he didn't do anything diplomatically. “You ruined my broadcast, Lauren—what the fuck is wrong with you?!”

She laughed, replying in a cool and flippant manner, “I guess my grip just... slipped!”

“Do you have any idea how expensive that equipment was?” Kevin snapped. “Get out of here! Out!” When he rose to chase her away, she barely flinched at his approach. It took Kevin's hands on her shoulders before she started to move backwards, and in that moment, she took her own opportunity to fight back.

Kevin didn't notice the needle before he felt the jab in his arm.

“Oooh, looks like you're slipping too, Kevin!”

That was where the memory cut out. He would wake later and Lauren would be bragging about the strength of the tranquilizers they'd had to take him down with, but he couldn't see her face clearly—in another time and another place, he woke up with someone else talking over him that he couldn't see at all.

It still had the same groggy sense like stirring from sedation, but something else: everything ached. Everything. Not just his eyes, now useless—maybe missing entirely? He couldn't organize the room into existence without visuals, but words whispered over him, floating through the air, the one indication that he wasn't alone.

“God. Do you think that'd even work? I mean he's still breathing.” Avery sounded nervous. The concept was somehow unreal: he was still breathing.

Dr. Kayali's voice replied, “Alisha did say it was his brother's handwriting—if Cecil said burning the body would work, I imagine it would.” She paused a moment, but that wasn't the end of her thought. “...I don't know if we should jump to hasty action based on his orders, though. Given that he's still keeping Carlos captive—and who knows what else he's planned.”

“So what, we decide to keep a known murderer alive in case the other one is more dangerous?” Theo argued. “Haven't you considered that both might be worse than either one or the other?”

“I'm with them.” Dave had little to say. “Burn the body.”

Avery sighed. “He's not just a body though—he's still... oh, god, are you awake?”

The whole lot of them went silent, and Kevin wished for all the world that he could see their faces before he would ever consider responding. There was no way to read the room if he couldn't see their faces. But with his hollow eyes already open, they must have already known.

So he tried to find his voice. Really tried to dig it up, from wherever it could have hidden, if it even still existed; he felt hollow. Emptied out. Like so much of him had been stripped away, and he couldn't retrace how he'd gotten here, who anyone was—with a sinking feeling, he realized he was only half-sure of who he was, himself.

“What's... going on, guys?” His voice was shaky, barely above a whisper. But it worked.

Dave let out a cry, “He's still—but—he's—”

Avery interrupted, “We know. We're all looking at the same thing, Dave—I'm just saying. It's not the most shocking thing, like, considering I shot him full of nails before.” They snorted. “He woke up from that, too.”

“You sound like you're adjusting to this all rather well,” Dr. Sylvia remarked in a calm tone of voice to suggest that she, too, had begun to adjust.

“Somewhere between the facial scarring and having my fucking eye replaced, I got over it,” they replied. “So what are we doing with him?”

Theo grumbled, “Still think it's a faulty idea trusting that they won't just both turn on us and screw us over.”

“We're already doomed,” Dr. Kayali pointed out helpfully. “We needed Cecil to get us out of here—now we have no escape plan.”

“So your idea is keeping this... monster alive?” Dave sounded surprised, somehow.

The only one more lost on the plan than Dave was probably Kevin, himself. He drifted in and out of awareness for a while, as they talked over him—discussed whether he was on their side, whether he'd turn on them, whether he'd kill them, and whether he even could do so now that he was blind. They discussed whether they thought he was blind.

Dr. Kayali delicately pried his third eye open. “Well, this one's still left.”

Slowly, her features came into some vague sense of focus, more like a silhouette than anything else—and it burned to have his eye open for too long, so Kevin shut it again. The action reminded everyone: he was still awake, still with them.

Theo was the second to decide to actually address him: “You're awfully silent through all of this. I would expect you to be concerned whether we decide to burn you or not.”

He frowned, and worked his voice back out of hiding. “Don't burn me.”

“Then why don't you tell us what you'll do to convince us not to?” Dr. Kayali asked.

Kevin didn't answer, letting the question drift away into silence. What was he supposed to say? He couldn't figure out the proper response, and if they were threatening to burn him, already—well, a mistake could cost him his life.

Most disconcertingly, he realized: he really had no idea what was going on.

“Come on. You're with us, right? You're awake,” Theo pointed out. “I'd use that to your advantage—if you're awake, you can argue for... well, survival, I'd suppose. You're lucky you woke up at all. You could have just been burned.”

Avery snorted. “Yeah, true. Look, Kevin, we're all kinda fed up with everything? So if you've got some secrets that'll get us out of here, or something—we're all ears.”

“Certainly,” Dr. Kayali agreed. “And if you want our mercy—you're going to need to earn it, of course. As it stands, you're lucky we haven't killed you yet.”

“Yeah!” Dave agreed really exuberantly.

Kevin tried to be the next to speak, but with everyone's voices spinning around him, he couldn't narrow in his focus well enough. It took their silence before he organized his thoughts enough to ask the one question he had for them, in return.

“Who's Kevin?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew. lot of new faces in this story! I figured it was time to organize some of the other citizens of Night Vale.
> 
> going in for surgery tomorrow, don't know when I'll next update. hope you guys enjoy this chapter! let me know through comments if you're having a good time!
> 
> rock on. <3


	39. The Blind Man and the Giant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin receives a visit from an old friend, in the hopes that he might turn some things around, now that he's still alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no real warnings, woohoo.

The lab he'd been locked into was silent, but the whole world sounded abuzz, compared to the utter lack of visual input. Kevin could have been looking at anything; it was all just black.

Once or twice since being put in that room, he'd tried to open his third eye, but it burned to even bother with it and he didn't fight as some unfamiliar woman wrapped bandages over most of his face to try to keep anything from getting into open wounds she didn't know how to seal. That was how they kept treating him since he woke up.

Whoops, another hole—time to patch it up. Dr. Kayali and Dave marveled over the hollow space in his chest, and somebody else stuffed a rag in his mouth to keep him from screaming as they cracked his already healing ribs back into a position near normal. Avery laughed nervously as they watched the stitches zigzag up his chest like a zipper sewing him shut. They'd emptied a bolt of nails into his chest, his brother tore him open, and yet he was healing anyway .

Recollections of the small cluster of scientists probing in his hollow chest cavity filled up too much of the empty space in his head. Kevin shuddered, kept his vacant eyes closed, and didn't dare to leave his chair.

Lest they find something else curious about him.

After eons of silence, the door creaked open and someone light on their feet stepped into the room. He oriented his head in what he thought was the right direction, eyes wrapped tight under bandages, but he still could use his mouth to speak. His words came quietly, “Who's there? It hurts, can I have more?”

(Avery, reluctant, had nevertheless handed over a handful of painkillers with express instruction to ration them for when he needed it most. Kevin wasted no time taking every last one.)

The voice that answered him spoke in a language that came easily, after all the slow-processing and listening closely for the words everyone else was using. He wouldn't have known to call it Old Nightvalian, but enough of him knew how to respond to Alicia's words: 'I don't have anything for the pain, Kevin.'

'Well, nobody does,' he agreed, turning away as though that did anything. It was a gesture. It wasn't a particularly useful act. Alicia drifted into the room with the necessary care of someone far too tall to fit into an ordinary classroom comfortably. To Kevin's blind eyes, their presence was the same as anyone else, but Alicia ducked to stay within the confines of the tiny space, and settled on the floor near his seat, legs crossed.

From there, they watched him; he wasn't paying any mind to their location, now. Kevin might have been staring into the lab equipment if he'd had eyes to do so, or half a mind to care that it was there. His words had said enough; all he fucking wanted was more painkillers.

But the way he held himself was different enough from how he'd been. Different enough that they dared to ask him, 'Do you remember how you got here?'

Kevin scowled. 'No. I don't. Everyone said I killed some people and I did horrible things and—I... I don't remember any of it.' The bitterness on his face fell away as he finished, dissolving into only a guilty frown.

'You did,' they agreed. 'You've hurt a number of people, but so has your brother, don't let them rob you of that.'

He said nothing, unsure of how that was meant to offer any solace.

(Was he supposed to feel absolved? Was he meant to feel kinship? Who the fuck said that sort of rubbish?)

Alicia watched him as he leaned against the desk, moodily working his jaw, gritting his teeth, not saying a word. It would have been hard to call him hollow, like it was new after the way he'd been for longer than they could remember, but he certainly was barely there.

(Dr. Kayali said that he asked who he was. Vaguely seemed aware he'd done some radio announcing at some point. Recognized the name Desert Bluffs, and reeled at Cecil's name.)

'Do you remember the Smiling God, Kevin?' they asked, voice tense.

The frown did not leave his features; he shook his head.

They tried another: 'Do you remember Night Vale?'

'I... was that... that's the town, right?' he asked.

Alicia nodded. Paused. 'Yes.' He couldn't have seen the nod if he'd even been looking in their direction. In some way, it was reassuring. For once, nobody could see their face, mask or no mask. Alicia reached up to feel the feathered visage that had replaced the face they wore once, years ago, and considered taking it off for once.

He would have recognized the old face better, but he'd recognize neither, now.

'We grew up in Night Vale, Kevin. You and Cecil and... not very many of us who are here, but some of the Masked Army. Most of them are... younger. From later versions of the same town. Bitter. They'll listen to Doug and I only sometimes. It's simpler to get caught up in—'

Kevin interrupted, 'Just shut up.'

They said nothing, watching him until he continued on his own.

'I don't know what any of that means anyway. You're better off telling your goddamn revelations to someone else or something if you've got great inside information,' he spat, now sounding angry for real. 'I'm sure they'd worship you for it. Just throw me in the fucking trash compactor since they don't need me anymore.'

Alicia frowned beneath their mask, a safe expression, obscured even if he could see. Not another word had to leave their mouth for him to keep talking; it seemed he'd finally found his words and now he was having none of the silence that was imposed on him in solitude.

(It was reassuring. They gave him to the scientists, when they realized he hadn't died. Dr. Kayali reported that he was barely responding to anything, let alone talking, yelling.)

'Don't think I didn't hear them. Don't think I can't still hear them. How's that work? Yeah, I got it, they're... that's not in the room. I'm not stupid. A-and—and everyone thinks I am! I don't know what's going on, but I know they're just—they're waiting to destroy me! It sounds like this... Cecil, my brother—he's no brother of mine—he wants me dead doesn't he?'

Alicia quietly confirmed, and for a moment this was enough to silence him.

But he didn't stay quiet for long.

'That doesn't surprise me. I guess. This... Kevin. Whoever I was—am—what a rotten. Unsavory. Horrible. Piece of. You grew up with. Was there ever anything good about me?' he asked, his voice quivering, cracking as he broke down to cry.

They began with a familiar reassurance, 'Of course, you...' and trailed off as they couldn't think of how to finish without having to lie.

He'd hunched over the desk by now, muffling sobs into the sleeves of some oversized sweatshirt he'd been given. The tears that soaked his sleeves weren't just blood anymore, but they didn't run perfectly clear.

It was a familiar enough routine. One they'd run through more than a fair few times as children. After all, they'd always been closer friends with Kevin than his brother.

It went something like this:

Kevin, much younger, but not so different. Kevin, the brother who still spent time with his friends—though sparingly. With bigger lapses between. He didn't have Cecil's prophecy or his pride, but all the same, Kevin seemed to float around town like a boy with a heavy omen hanging over his head.

He had three years on Alicia, enough that he was finishing high school as they were just getting used to it. Kevin carried his rainclouds through the halls, and most days blended with the last. Then he'd panic, sometimes. Then he'd lash out, sometimes.

Sometimes, he lashed out at them.

Alicia couldn't remember what he'd been freaking out over before his fist flew at them, knocking them clean off their feet to the tiled floor.

Nameless classmates rushed past, people who wanted no part in it as Kevin loomed over, lips pulled back in a scowl. 'Don't you fucking say that to me,' he hissed. 'You got it? You don't fucking say that to me again.'

Then he stomped away down the hall, students parting like the red sea to either side.

Later, it was more like:

Kevin, begging for forgiveness. Spilling apologies from his mouth like a fountain. Explaining, excusing, explaining, excusing, and enough sorries that the word stopped making any sense. His about-face wasn't even hours later. It was just after the next period.

When Kevin got moody, staying calm was paramount. Staying calm was the only thing. Staying calm meant not being the next one he lashed out at, or lashed out at again.

Diffuse. Let the situation pass.

In the present, Alicia carefully pulled the mask from their face and laid it aside to keep it undamaged; the threat of him lashing out was as real now as it had ever been.

(As real as when they were children. As real as his fingers wrapped around their neck, profanities spilling from his mouth like a toxin that he couldn't get out no matter how he tried. Staying calm was only one thing; hoping he'd calm down was another.)

But they had size on their side, and he was injured, and though maneuvering wasn't easy in the lab space, Alicia edged closer and reached to lay... well, they laid a couple of fingers on his shoulder. A whole hand felt like overkill.

Kevin shrugged away the contact, moodily. 'Don't touch me,' he whimpered.

So they tried again, he shrugged off twice, and a third time, but then he didn't try it a fourth. And that was usually how it went, though the routine had long gone stagnant. Alicia watched him, feeling like an actor in a play that nobody else had practiced for.

(This was how to make him manageable, they could tell themself. This was how to get him on their side. This was how to have an ally of at least one brother, they could reassure.)

He turned in a very predictable way, to face toward them like they were directly at his side, something accessible, someone he could lean on for a friendly hug. Instead, Kevin reached out, lost his balance, and slid off his chair onto the floor before he even had a chance to realize quite consciously that the person he was trying to hug wasn't person-sized.

Not a single curse escaped his mouth. He just lay on the ground, shaking, coughing. Shocked clean out of his own tears by the pain. Alicia reached out, then, and took him up in their arms completely.

(They may as well have been coddling a small child.)

'You should be more careful,' they insisted. 'I've never seen you so badly hurt, I couldn't say how well you can stand up to more damage—'

Kevin held up a hand for silence, well aware that he couldn't have interrupted verbally while still trying to rasp for air. But he had no racing heart to calm, and couldn't in all honesty say he needed anything like breath anymore, but that was unnerving. He didn't want to think about it. What it meant. He could focus, instead, on something else.

And so, using gestures where he couldn't form words, he worked a shaky hand out and tapped at their oversized arm, an oversized hand, reaching up toward where he presumed there must have eventually been an oversized torso, a looming face he couldn't see.

'I don't know why we're like this, Kevin,' they answered, guessing at the question. 'It feels like every iteration, there's a bigger divide.'

Then at his gesturing, they slowly, uncertainly lowered their face until he could touch it. Trace what was left of the shape of it, where it hadn't gone flat into a silhouette like the rest of their body had become. The barely remembered shape of cheekbones, of a too-big nose—a beak, he'd always called it. Like some kind of desert bird.

Delicately examining what he could of Alicia's face, Kevin forgot about his self-loathing as quickly as it had come; that was the way of things. Always had been. Always would be.

Alicia spoke, with his hands curiously testing the way it felt while their mouth moved. 'I know you don't think you can do anything to help these people. And I agree—you have no business asking them to forgive you. You've ruined their lives—you've ended some of them. And...honestly, some of ours, too.'

He withdrew then, shock on what was visible of his bandaged face. 'Y-you...?' he asked.

They nodded, but he wasn't touching their face anymore and the gesture went unacknowledged. Alicia reached out for their mask once again in the absence of his grabbing hands—it didn't seem like he was going to be breaking it anytime soon.

'You have as much of an influence in this as Cecil does,' they continued at last. 'That's all I want you to know. If you'd listen to that, and act accordingly—what you do here, now, it matters Kevin. Your actions always matter.'

He said nothing, the scowl reforming on his face; he didn't agree with any of that.

'I don't know how much you remember right now. Maybe whatever damage was done to you is healing. In time, it might be healed completely, and maybe you'll know what's going on. Hopefully, that will be a good thing,' they murmured, but without being entirely sure.

At least it hadn't been the Smiling God who'd sent many of them away, the oldest of the Masked Army. Doug had helped them figure out the majority of it, so long ago that the steps they'd taken getting there were as lost as the faces they'd watched each other lose.

Cecil was writing them off.

The Voice of Night Vale was a title that came with a certain amount of power. Cecil laughed as he called mobs down on barbers, he twirled his hair and oozed pure saccharine stickiness into the microphone as he told everyone to run old friends out of town.

Doug had been a test of power. A nameless nobody to Cecil, he picked the name from their high school yearbook and deleted him like he'd never existed.

(Quarterback! He'd been quarterback! Since then, the team had a notoriously bad run of luck keeping any quarterback from falling out through the crack that Cecil tore to pull Doug out. Night Vale found its own way to make due, they drafted their quarterback from thin air.)

Alicia remembered their own transgression had been something a little more personal.

It happened something like this: they said something, he didn't agree with it, and that was the end of it in the eyes of a power-mad little boy with a prophecy. Kevin wasn't afraid to leave anyone black and blue, but his brother was the one who erased them like he thought it was some kind of game.

The Masked Army saw few new members these days, nothing like the beginning. Nothing like Cecil with a taste for vengeance at anyone who saw the way he treated the city like a plaything, thought he could get away with acting however he pleased.

So Alicia knew that Kevin was an asshole. Fair enough. But Cecil had erased them for telling him to stop, and forgotten. So they'd asked him, tried to face him with it: most everyone in the Masked Army was from Night Vale .

Cecil had laughed off the blame.

The good brother, indeed.

'I know you're hurt, and I'm sorry about that, but you do have to try and help,' they explained to Kevin. 'I don't know how the University has gotten here; Doug told me that he thinks Cecil wrote the whole thing off. Found himself a new boyfriend and didn't like the competition. I don't know what to believe.'

Kevin sighed, but he nodded. He understood enough that nobody was going to forgive him, even if he couldn't quite recall what they would be forgiving him for.

'Work on remembering, and try to put us back—or try to talk to Cecil, I don't know. Just think about it,' they continued.

He frowned, guilty. 'I can't...do anything.'

'Do you really believe that?' they asked, still holding him in their arms. 'Point me in the direction of anyone else here with as many missing parts as you, who's still holding a conversation—sorry. That was insensitive.' They corrected themself as his expression warped.

He shook his head, and leaned it against their chest, his face easily vanishing into the tatters of their clothing. 'Doesn't mean anything,' he insisted.

Alicia sighed. Of course he was arguing. And why wouldn't he be? That was just Kevin.

'Listen. You passed the Smiling God to your brother—so I'd say hope for all of our sakes that you're a Voice in your own right,' they explained. 'Otherwise, you've just infected godlike power with boiling rage.'

Kevin locked his jaw, saying nothing.

So there were two options: Kevin was nothing but an eldritch mistake, a catastrophe of towering proportions and dire consequences.

Or the Voice of Desert Bluffs.

With a capital V.

He hoped it was the second, and Alicia stayed with him a while, and hoped for the same.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaand...that's a wrap. hopefully this chapter was worth the wait, i've been in recovery from surgery for a bit, but i'm starting to function again.
> 
> hope you enjoyed.


	40. Angles of Approach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A group leaves Night Vale in search of Cecil. Meanwhile, Kevin receives a more disgruntled visitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no warnings. celebrate!

The group that set out for the desert otherworld late that night wasn't very large. It wasn't impressive. It... wasn't really the militia that Tamika had once chased around and shouted orders at, as a child.

She couldn't help but feel a bit let down by all the friends that hadn't come.

Megan Wallaby trailed closest behind her, looming in her flowery dress, with a look of sharp intent on her face. But everyone's faces were tight and solemn in the procession. They knew well enough that this plan wasn't guaranteed to work.

“I hope you remember how to do this, miss Cardinal,” Roger muttered anxiously, eyes flitting to the mayor a moment before he redirected his gaze back toward the front.

“Please, call me Dana,” she replied with as warm a smile as she could muster.

Roger sighed. “That doesn't answer my question.”

Mx. Mitchell took up the rear, staring at the Erikas from behind. The one misfit in the group who only knew anyone else's names by mere hours. They hadn't waited for Josie, she noted, wondering whether the Erikas had taken her on a different kind of trip, and she'd been fed some euphemism. Then again, who could tell the workings of angels?

Maybe they just went to bowl somewhere.

She stifled a small giggle at the mental image, all too aware that the mood was too somber to be cracking herself up over angels doing something as absurd as bowling. The black Erika peered back at her, just for a moment, and looked away again.

Anita Mitchell tensed, then relaxed once the angel's eyes were off her.

Frazzled was too kind of a word for her state.

“You said it's a left past the Half-Moon Cafe, right?” Tamika called out from the front of the troupe, and all eyes were at the back again as their forward momentum slowed.

“Yeah, take a left, walk about five blocks, the campus opens up pretty quick once you're there though. It uh—used to be taller. You could see it over other buildings,” she explained. “Just a fence there now.”

As everyone started moving again, Dana fell into pace at the back of the line, taking up a spot at Anita's side. Neither made eye contact initially. Neither spoke.

Dana broke the silence, at length. “Nobody said you had to accompany us, Mx. Mitchell,” she reassured. “It's too much to just ask for a stranger to come to some alternate desert world just to chase down someone they don't even know. You have your town here to stay with, anyway.”

“I don't know. Call me Anita,” she muttered. “I mean. Not talking professionally here or whatever, just person to person... or... friends? What would you do? Given the choice between staying, maybe everything goes to shit, and you never know why—or following. I mean, maybe everything goes to shit anyway. Maybe we're all good as dead.”

Frowning, Dana answered, “You radio host types are always so... heavy. I guess it's better not deceiving ourselves though. We might be as good as dead.”

Anita Mitchell lapsed into silence again, only this time Dana allowed it to stay until she was ready to break the silence again. It took a while to get the words out of her mouth, and she always knew her way around words before.

“Isn't it better trying to help, then? Every person counts.”

“Do you think that one person is going to make a difference?”

She sighed. “I'd like to think so.”

At the front of the group, Tamika had fallen into a slower step with Megan and Roger flanking her, to talk. To strategize. To worry just a bit for the future, and reminisce just a bit about the past.

“We still don't know what we'll be facing there. Cecil's last correspondence sounds... unsettling.” She spoke in her clearest leader's voice. Like talking to troops. Her tiny militia. “Who knows what Kevin might have done with the University there. We might be facing him alone, we may well be facing an army of mindless Strex drones.”

Megan laughed once, sharply, her anxiety tangible. “I hope you brought a lot of books. I wish I'd remembered a slingshot.”

“I've got mine,” Roger murmured, slipping the conspicuous carved slingshot from his back pocket, large enough to launch a hardcover edition of Webster's Dictionary (abridged version), not small enough to really hide under his clothes.

Tamika, carrying a backpack full of books, didn't stop to fidget with the contents. “I have mine as well. It's alright, Megan—it was my error. I should have gotten a hold of one for you. I remember, you weren't able to join the militia last time.”

She nodded and replied, “I thought it was important this time.”

A small smile broke across Tamika's face. “Well, I'm glad to have you here, Megan.”

The lot of them lapsed into silence again, Tamika's hand brushing lightly against the hand that had once been Megan's entire body. If they'd been children, they would have held each other closer for comfort, but this was serious, and they were adults, and their brave faces needed to stay up if they'd ever hope to find the resolve to actually do it.

As they stepped past the last street corner obscuring the former site of the University, Megan made the move to grab her friend's hand, first. Tamika reached to take Roger's hand and he gripped back tightly.

The fence came up close to the edge of the road, an abrupt change in the scenery when everywhere else was furnished with a nice wide sidewalk. Signs littered the heavy wooden fence, concentrated around the door they were headed toward.

Don't enter. Stay out. Don't even think about it.

Far from the typical drinking to forget about it, the trio made their way toward the door, with Tamika leading them at a faster clip. It was now or never. Open the door, or don't.

Roger reached it first and grabbed the handle, pulling it back, and before Dana, Anita, or any of the Erikas could catch up, the whole group was bathed in a blinding light, streaming out of the open door like the sun began to shine in the middle of the night.

“What the fuck is that?” slipped out of Anita's mouth before anyone else said a word.

Tamika replied, voice wavering, “I should be nervous to think that it might be the Smiling God that we've been hearing about—the Void has never looked like this.”

“I don't think anyone's reported that light,” Anita agreed. “I... ...does this mean anything to anyone that it's glowing now?”

Roger made the grim suggestion: “What if the Smiling God took it over?”

Tamika's eyes met his, a harsh look that shot arrows until he looked away again. “Don't you say that. Don't you dare.”

“Hey. It's okay—it's probably just... because it's daylight in the desert, right?” Megan ventured, hoping to calm the two before they dissolved into fighting. “Everyone's always looking at the Void during the day, right? So maybe it's just light at night.”

Nobody said a word, agreed on how fake that explanation sounded. That sure as hell wasn't just sunshine on the other side.

“So... what if we go in and there is a Smiling God in there?” Anita asked.

Dana shrugged. “Anything could happen. I've been in the desert otherworld before—this sort of light is always there. I don't know what it means that it's coming out the door.”

“It sprung a leak?” Roger suggested dryly.

Tamika broke in on the banter, “Listen. We need to decide if we're still going through with this. Not just... leave the door hanging open while we talk about the weather.”

“Tamika's right,” Dana insisted. “I'm still in, I guess.”

Megan nodded with mock-enthusiasm, Roger nodded once and not again.

And surprisingly, Anita answered, “I'll come with.”

“Good,” Tamika replied without missing a beat. “So that makes eight of us, with the Erikas—”

One white Erika stepped forward, shaking their head, and it served as an answer for all three; they wouldn't be accompanying the others into the desert otherworld.

“Okay... five of us, then,” Tamika muttered with a frown. It took a second. She picked herself back up and shook off the dread. “Alright. That's not bad—especially if we're only up against Kevin alone, right? We took down Strex as children—and sure, it took some help, but I believe now, we can do anything.”

Megan smiled and agreed, “Anything.”

Their words were hollow distractions, holding off the inevitable: someone was going to have to step into the open door first, and nobody wanted to do it.

Finally, Dana interrupted the self-congratulatory babble and stepped in closer to the door. “Come on. We need to go—time is... well, weird, of course—but time is of the essence.”

Without saying another word, she stepped into the open door, faded into a silhouette, and then vanished from sight altogether.

Empowered, Megan followed, pulling Tamika by the hand, who in turn tugged the less willing Roger in through the glowing rectangle of the heavy oak door.

Anita swallowed hard, took a few steps forward, and practically felt her consciousness slip away before she could even touch the door frame.

Everything became light.

 

* * *

Avery stared into the stark lab, hating all the memories of the places that catastrophe had ruined. Every experiment, failure or success, now just overwritten by a haze and scenes of slaughter, or whatever had occurred in each room.

Cleaned up, Kevin wasn't making a mess of the lab he'd been locked into. It was precautionary. Until they could get someone to talk to him—and Alicia had agreed to do it—they couldn't be certain of whether he would turn on them, given the chance.

Dr. Kayali insisted that it was more of a sure fact now; he didn't seem to recall anything, and certainly seemed changed from the man who'd first greeted them. Most everyone had shifted easily from the thought of Kevin as a threat to Kevin as defenseless.

It horrified Avery how quickly they'd taken security away from his door, and so there they now stood, in the space where security should have been. Still healing from the wounds he'd left them with—or, their eye anyway. From the way that Kevin had never stopped bleeding, they could only imagine it wasn't going to heal for them, either.

Useless eye, full of light leaks, nothing but a pain and a constant weeping wound. At least the pain faded quickly enough with a bit of medicine.

(They promised Dr. Kayali that Kevin was getting a good share of painkillers. He wasn't.)

At length, Avery stepped into the lab and shut the door quietly behind them, but loudly enough still that Kevin noticed, and in his bed of hand towels, he rolled over toward the sound. He had nothing to go on anymore but what he could hear, after all.

“Who's there?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

Avery hesitated, but revealed themself. “It's me. Your... intern . I heard you don't remember any of that , though.”

Kevin kept his cool. “Oh. I'm sorry. I don't remember who you are—mind filling me in?”

“...I'd mind, yeah. I would actually fucking mind,” they hissed. “What the hell business do you think you've even got here? Ha, yeah, Dr. Kayali says you'll help, sure—I know you're full of shit.”

He frowned, still laying on his makeshift bed. He'd gotten help gathering the materials, he couldn't have possibly found them on his own. Avery stood several feet away, towering over him, unseen and for once in some fake position of power.

Because they really didn't feel like anything was in their control.

“What, got nothing to say?” Avery seethed. “What's your game?”

Kevin sighed. “I... ...am really sorry. For whyever you're upset. I'm... sure I deserve it.”

The quickness of his apology sucked the venom right out of them. Avery went silent, staring at him in disbelief; Kevin really had gone completely flat. He didn't seem to argue or defend himself at all, didn't have anything to say except to apologize to people and ask for whatever little comforts he thought he could convince someone to give him.

His weakness was disarming; he lay in his bed still, visibly shivering.

“...I don't have to feel bad for you just because you got fucked up,” Avery argued, the argument losing some strength even as they said it.

But Kevin agreed, again. “So don't.”

He rolled over to look away, readjusting the pile of towels with shaky hands, and lapsed into silence. Like he anticipated that Avery was done talking to him now, or wanted badly to make a hint that he was done talking to them.

Avery watched him for a moment, hands balled into fists, teeth gritted. And they wanted to scream. To tell him this was all a fucked up mess.

What came out instead was this:

“I tried to fucking send classmates in to deal with your brother and he killed them.”

The words hit, and then silence fell. Kevin slowly worked out what was just told to him, pressing his hands delicately against the floor to push himself up. So he could sit, pretend like he was looking in Avery's direction.

They said nothing while they watched him move, each action slow and deliberate. Any initial energy he'd had after waking back up seemed to have gone away. Sitting up was no meaningless task, if he was putting forth the effort.

“Alicia said I needed to talk to him,” he murmured. “Why did you send someone else?”

Avery stayed silent.

(Why the fuck send classmates? It was too easy to recruit. People listened to a friendly voice over the radio. They came, they were confident, they really seemed like they had a—no they didn't. They never had a chance.)

“Are you still there?” Kevin asked at length.

(Why send classmates and not accompany them? They could answer that one.)

“...Avery...?”

Finally, they replied, “That was... before talking to you. I wanted to burn you. Like we were told to—not because we were told. I just... don't like you.”

Well, that was flat. Dislike wasn't strong enough of a term for the repulsion of even looking at him. Sitting there. Hamming up his weakness so everyone would feel bad.

Kevin didn't even respond, that time; he had no defense.

“I still think you should burn,” Avery insisted, hopping the threat sounded sincere.

He nodded and replied, “Take me to Cecil, first. I'll talk to him.”

“Yeah? How do I know you're not just fucking with me? So you can go and plan some crazy thing or something?” Avery snapped. “How do I know?”

Kevin tilted his head downward, as if looking at himself, and he replied quietly, “I'm not planning with him, if he tore pieces out of me.”

Avery wasn't sure they could argue with that logic.

  “Alright. I'll bring you to him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stay tuned.
> 
> as always, kudos are great, comments are transcendentally awesome!


	41. Tampering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin gets what he asked for: a chance to talk to Cecil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: typical blood/gore type stuff, auto-cannibalism (if that's worse than regular cannibalism), emotional manipulation.
> 
> synopsis to follow.

Carlos looked up from his work first, when he head the lab lock click open, but he wasn't the first to say something.

“I hope they're bringing more friends this time,” Cecil remarked cheerfully.

The room had already been a filthy mess from Kevin's blood, and Rachelle's body, but after the last ill-conceived plan at trying to pry Carlos away, Cecil had painted the floor a most glorious shade of red with the blood of, he counted, only some five different people. It hadn't been a particularly bold display of power on the University's part.

He could scarcely expect better this time—they were going to keep fooling around, for whatever reason. Keeping him locked in this room as though they actually believed that anything kept him here other than his own choice to stay.

Carlos kept at his work, attempting still to piece Kevin's robotic eye back together, now that he'd taken it apart. Scientist or not, he wasn't much of a robotics engineer. Anything he thought might help was spilled across the surface of the table. Lab tools and knives, bloodstones and cell phones, and his own dismantled wrist watch. Blood smeared across the entire table, left from Kevin's presence earlier, drying thick and black.

None of it was helping.

Neither made a move for the door, but waited for it to swing open. Cecil anticipated some new entertainment with a grin on his face; Carlos had no expression to speak of.

Even when the door was pushed open and it was Kevin who walked in, his face didn't so much as twitch. Cecil stared at his brother, stumbling uselessly, blatantly grabbing at the door frame to even stay on his feet. Someone had dropped him into the room and left him there.

The grin on his face slowly broadened. “Well, well, well—Kevin! Imagine seeing you again,” he called over to break the silence. “I told them to burn you—I guess they don't listen to orders all that well.”

Kevin grimaced. “I... would feel that,” he murmured.

“Oh, I know.”

One of Kevin's hands stayed on the door frame, the other quested for something else to steady himself with, but nothing was close enough to touch without having to abandon his current support entirely. And Avery had left the room as soon as they saw to it that he was in.

In with whatever was going to happen, now. He was sure he wouldn't enjoy it.

“You know, my boyfriend is working on something that should help you with those bad eyes of yours,” Cecil remarked after a long pause. “Isn't that right, Carlos? You're so smart with those eyes there.”

Carlos shrugged and replied, “There's some progress, but um. There's not... a lot of progress—not for lack of trying. Do you have any idea how damaged this thing was?”

“Pretty damaged?” Cecil guessed.

“Exactly. I don't know if I can repair it. Isn't there a second somewhere?” he asked. “Is it less damaged, maybe? I want a good look at it—this is very interesting , but not very useful . I think that one would be useful.”

Cecil chuckled, “We'll get a hold of it. Kevin, where did your other eye go?” He turned to face his brother again, a smirk on his face. “I thought you had three last we spoke—I know where two of them are. Did someone else beat me to the third?”

“I...guess?” he answered, unsure. Kevin leaned against the wall, edging his way slowly further from the door as he groped for some kind of counter top, something he could better lean against, even sit on. Trying to stand for too long sucked the energy out of him, and fast.

Shaking his head, Cecil replied, “That's a shame. I'll find it eventually though—and don't you have anything else interesting? Carlos has been looking for more scientifically interesting—oh! I almost forgot. I have something of yours.”

He made his way over to the table that Carlos sat at, where he was now distractedly watching Cecil instead of working. Cecil caught his gaze and asked, “You put it somewhere, didn't you? After all, we agreed to—”

“Of course I have it,” Carlos interrupted, pulling something sticky, black and somewhere around fist-sized from a drawer on the desk. He dropped it quickly into Cecil's waiting hands.

“You—you have something...of mine?” Kevin asked, hesitant. Was it going to be something good? Was it going to be something horrible? He tried to open his third eye, remembering swiftly enough that it was covered and wouldn't open anytime soon.

Kevin saw nothing as Cecil walked toward him and pressed the bloody mass against his chest with a cynical laugh. “Look what I found. I didn't think it existed . But, here we are—a lot of unlikely things have existed, before.”

He caught the organ before it hit the floor, and tried to get a sense for it with his hands—the shape was familiar enough, to some part of him that was still waking up. Kevin realized, with a sinking feeling, exactly what he was holding in his own two hands: Cecil had given him back his heart. And it was cold, still, and fell easily out of his grasp once he realized that somebody had taken a bite out of it.

“Why—why did...?” he tripped over his words, tongue thick in his mouth. Kevin stumbled back toward the door, scrambling to try and get away though he couldn't move fast enough before an unseen pair of tentacles slammed him against the wall.

Everything spun out of reality for the several moments it took before the pain died down enough to even think again, and Cecil had him pinned, lecturing him, unaware that he'd checked out for a moment. “...time you got fixed up, see, that's always been a problem of yours, hasn't it? You haven't got a very good heart—I wasn't sure you had one at all, of course, we're just talking metaphorically here, but I couldn't resist when I saw the opportunity. And Carlos assured me that he's very good at dissection, before he did it.”

Carlos laughed, unnatural, and only for a moment. “Aw. Don't. I'm not that good.”

“And modest, too!” he added. “Now, what about you? You're... this isn't even a fight, Kevin. You're basically dead already. But, see, at least I thought to bring you something. Now take it, don't be ungrateful.”

Again, Kevin felt his own heart pressed into his hands, and this time didn't drop it for fear of retaliation—he wasn't sure why the hell Cecil kept putting it there, but if he could fight the nausea welling up inside him, at least he could hold that horrible thing just to keep himself from having anything else removed.

Cecil smiled down at him, watching him struggle to keep his cool, and then the words came out of his mouth that would have made Kevin's blood run cold, if he was sure his blood even ran anymore. “You should taste it. It's pretty good.”

The burning claws of Cecil's influence sunk into him then, at that moment when he couldn't resist and turn away from it, and it was like the Smiling God had come back to him all at once. He reeled at the feeling, tried to resist, and then fell into perfect motion exactly as Cecil commanded from him.

His fingers wrapped around the cold flesh of his own heart, and he lifted it to his mouth, shaking as he sunk his teeth in to taste his own stale blood.

Carlos watched in mute anticipation from the other end of the room. Whether he was horrified or curious, it didn't matter, because nobody was watching him for the moment.

As Kevin made to tear off a piece of flesh, his tooth stopped against something hard, and in some way he wasn't sure he understood, the suddenness of it must have snapped him out of it. He spit out the blood in his mouth and dropped his heart, too weak to even throw it, too blind to see what rolled out when it hit the floor with a decided clatter that shouldn't have followed from dropping flesh.

Cecil stared down as the bloodstone rolled out the hole that his brother had bit in the side of the heart, and slowly put two and two together: those must certainly have gotten in there somehow.

“Carlos. Are you tampering?” he asked, voice currently level, but only currently.

He shook his head, feigning focus on his work still as he replied, “I've touched nothing. Do you know why there would be so many cracks in the robotic retina on this eyeball?”

Reaching down to pick up the bloodstone that had fallen out on the floor, Cecil recognized instantly that it wasn't his own. The smile on his face fell away into an exaggerated scowl as he made to check Kevin's partially dissected heart to see if Carlos was trying to hide anything else in it—and found that his suspicions weren't inaccurate. Carlos was clearly attempting to sneak Kevin's bloodstones back to him.

The way his hands quivered as Cecil's stare fixated on him was evidence enough of guilt. Cecil abandoned his brother to lay against the door, miserably drenched with his own blood and surrounded by scattered bloodstones and shredded muscle, unrecognizable after the damage Cecil had done to it.

“You're tampering , Carlos,” he hissed as he approached. “Why would you do that?”

Carlos looked up at him with a frown. “Cecil I... ...”

He took hold of the scientist's face, roughly, so he couldn't look away. “You shouldn't have been able to tamper. Not with my influence—you shouldn't have even been able to—how? How did you... why would you?”

Tears had begun to stream down Carlos' face, though he tried to keep his voice level enough when he answered, “I knew... I knew you were trying to influence I—I felt it before. So I... I winged it so you'd stop, I don't know, I—please, Cecil. This isn't right.”

“You lied to me?!” he snapped, and before Carlos even had the chance to respond, he'd thrown him to the floor. “How dare you—how could you lie to me like that?”

Carlos didn't dare move from his spot, staring fearfully up at Cecil as he stammered his reply, “I—I—I wanted to make it—better. I thought i-if. I don't know I just—Cecil, please!” His last words turned into a scream as Cecil's tattoos warped, taking their familiar tentacled shape—something he'd found so fascinating and lovely in what seemed like another life entirely.

Cecil's weight came down on him in the form of a knee pressed hard against his chest, sending shooting pains through his already damaged ribs, the cumulative disaster of careless binding and physical violence. He couldn't help but let out a cry of pain, loud and piercing.

“You lied to me, Carlos.” Cecil's words sounded hurt, but his expression had barely shifted, it didn't look real, more like some strange mask than his actual face. “I thought you said that you loved me—you did say that, didn't you? Was that a lie, too?”

Completely winded and in pain, Carlos said nothing in reply; he feebly tried to refuse but it wouldn't have been much use in the situation, even if it stalled for a moment.

He felt Cecil's tentacles wind around his limbs, tight enough to cut off blood circulation. But the pair hovering by his neck took their time to let Carlos really soak in the moment.

Strangled by his own boyfriend, for being foolish enough to follow him on a suicide mission. It really had come true.

“I thought—you said—you loved me,” Cecil hissed, voice low and quiet. “Well—I don't love you either. I never loved you. Never .”

The words pierced, but he clamped his eyes shut before he felt the slick surface of Cecil's tentacles glide over his neck to wind around it, deliver the final attack—maybe in some way he was lucky to not be torn apart alive.

In another sense, he was luckier, because Cecil's tentacles jerked away quickly at the sound of something like chanting.

Cecil spun to face his brother, supplied with his full set of bloodstones for the first time in so, so long. With the intuitive sense he'd always carried about him, Kevin had laid out every one of them, despite his blindness, and began a ritual that Cecil barely recognized.

Carlos wasn't sure what made him do it, but the moment that Cecil stood to make a run for the other side of the room, he made a desperate grab for his legs. It took any strength he had to force Cecil down, but he came down hard against the tile floor, and a moment later, jerked one foot free to kick Carlos in the face.

Glasses smashed against the bridge of his nose, Carlos finally pulled back in a daze; he could do nothing but hope.

Hope that he'd really gotten every bloodstone hidden away.

Hope that Kevin was able to tell what he was doing, was even on his side.

Hope that Cecil was delayed long enough for whatever was going to happen next.

Carlos tried to pick the glass from his face, clear the wounds so he could press down and stop the bleeding. Enough adrenaline had kicked in to shut off the pain for now—he knew, from a scientific standpoint that was completely based in empirical fact—that was going to hurt like fuck if he survived long enough for the rush to wear back off.

But he watched the blurred visual as Cecil bolted for his brother, and ran into something unexpected, it seemed, to both of them:

A third figure had materialized, half distorted, from thin air itself. From where he sat, Carlos wasn't sure if he could have mistaken it for either brother, but the hair color was spot on, the skin color was accurate.

Whatever words escaped the mouth of the twisted figure were in a language that Carlos couldn't understand, but recognized fully by now: Old Nightvalian.

Cecil halted, with his brother's doppelganger now between the two of them. The double, the second Kevin—he wasn't in pieces, wasn't missing anything. All three eyes stared back at Cecil like an accusation, a sharp glare that he hadn't felt since they were both young.

'Leave this place,' the doppelganger threatened. 'You aren't welcome in Desert Bluffs anymore, you rotten, vile thing.'

He scoffed. 'Stop me.'

When Cecil came forward to bypass the double, it grabbed his arms and shoved back. Didn't try to fight. Didn't try to attack him. Just tried to hold him back.

Cecil was the one who lashed out first, tentacles whipping out to strangle Kevin's double, but they wrapped tight around the thing's neck, tightened to crush the double's windpipe, and nothing seemed to work.

Kevin's double wasn't breathing, so it couldn't suffocate.

Instead it pushed back at Cecil, forcing him further from the door and away from Kevin, with a strength that didn't seem possible coming from nothing but a damaged incantation. A double with patches of skin that seemed transparent, black like the blood beneath. A double with clothing that lacked detail, like a shoddily drawn in afterthought. Like Kevin could scarcely keep up the appearance, let alone its strength.

But it held Cecil back with relative ease. He tried to pull away; it didn't release him then, either, but kept a firm grip.

'Let go of me,' he snapped, looking not at the double but at Kevin, who remained in his bloodstone circle unmoved. 'What do you think you're going to accomplish? You're already dying—you're as good as dead—'

The doppelganger spoke next, 'Then why am I overpowering you?'

Cecil's expression twisted. 'You're not—you—' He didn't know the actual answer, he didn't know why, but he knew that he was losing ground, the double pushed him back further. The look of concentration on the real Kevin's face still seemed relaxed compared to the exertion that Cecil put out trying to force his way over again.

It wasn't working.

'This is my town, Cecil,' Kevin answered for him. 'This—Desert Bluffs? This is my town. You wrote it all off, don't forget. Now it's mine .'

The double produced eight perfectly formed tentacles, a larger number than he knew his brother had—but Kevin had created the untouched version of himself, perfect in whatever ways he was capable, as a person. And it forced Cecil, struggling, to the ground and pinned him.

“Carlos, would you get something for me?” Kevin called over, now in words he could understand, again.

At this, Cecil finally started yelling. “Don't you dare! Don't you dare help him, Carlos—you love me—you need me—you listen to me !” He struggled against the double's grip, but he only had the upper hand where he was used to fighting—Kevin's influence in the otherworld outranked his, because he didn't belong here. He belonged with Night Vale.

Carlos watched the two—well, three—of them. Kevin's expressionless double, or whatever he could tell of its expression with his glasses. And Cecil, who'd smashed those same glasses into his face, now screaming threats at him as he fought to escape and make good on those promises. Kevin sat in his bloodstone circle, still as a statue and too far away to make out with even the least clarity.

He hoped, hoped for the best as he asked, “What am I getting, now?”

“You traitor!” Cecil shrieked, “You traitorous, heartless—I never loved you! I never did!” He tried to wrench himself free, but found still that the tables were turned as they'd never been. All he could do was yell. “Don't you dare turn on me! I won't let you!”

The claws of his influence dug in more harshly than Carlos had felt them before, but the dizziness flitted away with a simple command from Kevin: “Cecil. Stop.”

It dazed him long enough to give Kevin the chance to speak to Carlos. “I'm in pain. Get me something. And something to restrain Cecil. Get Alicia—no. I don't know. Give me... fuck.”

He buried his face in his hands, trying to ground himself, settle back into what he was doing and keep the dizziness at bay. If he dropped focus, the doppelganger was going to fade away. Kevin only knew how to order what happened next for as long as he could stay conscious—if he wasn't, it didn't matter whose town it was.

“Kevin...?” Carlos asked, cautiously approaching him. It seemed they were on the same side now, right? He had to be trustworthy—right?

Cecil started to return to his senses, enough to curse in frustration under his breath and wriggle in the grasp of the double's tentacles, but he wasn't back up to yelling just yet. Kevin's influence wore off in bursts.

Carlos stopped outside of the bloodstone circle. “Are you alright?” he asked. It wasn't easy to make out, he couldn't quite see anything in detail, but close enough he could tell that Kevin was bleeding heavily again from his third eye for reasons he didn't quite understand. Black blood had soaked through the bandages like ink. He remembered for a moment, he knew what that tasted like, and Kevin had been forced to sample his own.

But he wasn't saying anything, now, or doing anything. Kevin had lapsed into a silence that didn't rest well with Carlos' nervousness at the moment. His face was buried in his hands, the only movement he made was the quiet quivering that shook his body.

He was, after all, weakened. Carlos hadn't liked doing it, but he'd known there wasn't any other choice. Not if he wanted any chance at tricking Cecil.

“Hey, stay with me.” He crouched, keeping outside the bloodstone circle still; he knew from Cecil's explanations that if he butted in, everything could only get worse. “Kevin. You wanted—what did you want? Painkillers? I can get you those—here, I think I have something, actually. Give me. Give me a minute here.”

Carlos stuffed his hands into his pockets, hoping that he still had some amount left from what Avery had given him to deal with his busted rib. The bottle rattled; something still was left, and he opened it to look and pried his eyes away from Kevin too long.

He didn't notice fast enough when Kevin seized up, or maybe he'd have stopped him before he fell over the threshhold of his bloodstone circle and scattered the stones.

“Kevin!” he cried out, trying to grab hold and stop him from injuring himself—he knew well enough that it wasn't good to grab someone who was seizing, but hoped there may have still been some way to snap him out of it. Like it wasn't a real fit, like nothing right now was really real; he tried to shake Kevin awake from a seizure.

And it wasn't working.

The moment he heard Cecil moving again, he knew there were two options: he could run, save himself, because he knew that Cecil would kill him if he stayed.

Or he could try to take Kevin with him and hope they both got out in time.

(Well, Kevin was the only one who'd shaken his brother—leave him to Cecil's mercy, and there wasn't any point in running, was there?)

He scooped Kevin up in his arms as well as he could and tried the door; it was locked.

“Oh god—oh god—let me out!” he cried, kicking at the door. “Let me out, he'll kill me!”

Between trying to cry for help and trying to keep a hold on Kevin, Carlos couldn't split his focus further to watch where Cecil was in the room; he heard the accusations that spilled forth from his mouth though. “Don't you dare leave with him! You listen to me—Carlos. Listen to me, you're mine .”

Cecil started over, ready to do whatever he needed to—just to prove his point.

And then, too far yet for him to do anything but watch, the door cracked open, and both Carlos and Kevin slipped away from sight.

He ran to catch the door before it locked, but gripped a knob that wouldn't turn.

“How dare you! Let me out of here, I'll kill all of you!”

Cecil's words came out more furious and desperate than Carlos had ever heard them, but there was nothing to do but ignore—he had to focus on the other task at hand, for now.

The young woman who'd opened the door was one he couldn't recognize. He thought perhaps his glasses really made that much of a difference, and thought nothing else of it until she spoke in an unfamiliar voice as well to ask a question:

“Is that... Kevin? ”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Synopsis:  
> Carlos and Cecil are still in their lab room together; Carlos has been working on trying to repair Kevin's robotic eye, while Cecil seems to have just been very bored. So when the door unlocks, Cecil greets this with some excitement: he'd like more people to butcher and spread across the floor.  
> Instead, Kevin enters the room, and Cecil's immediate response is to tell him that he was supposed to be burnt, to which Kevin replies that he'd have felt it. Cecil acknowledges, admitting that he wanted Kevin to be burned alive. Initially, they sort of banter about how Carlos was trying to fix his eye, but it was too badly damaged. Carlos asks where the other one is, and Kevin says that he doesn't know. Cecil insists that he has something for Kevin, then, if Kevin has nothing for them.  
> He grabs something from Carlos and walks it over, shoving it into Kevin's grip, and of course after examining it for a moment with his hands, he realizes that he's just been handed back his own heart that they removed from him earlier. More disturbing, it shows signs of having been partially eaten--clearly Cecil took a sample. Kevin drops it and tries immediately to leave the room, but Cecil stops him, slamming him against the wall and pinning him. He insists that he didn't even realize that Kevin had a heart at all, and then hands it back to him, forbidding him from dropping it. Then his influence kicks in: he wants Kevin to take a taste of it.  
> Against his will, Kevin takes a bite from his own heart, and realizes that something is a little unusual: something hard has been hidden in the damaged organ. He snaps back to his senses and drops it once again, and Cecil notes the bloodstones that Carlos must have hidden, as a means of sneaking them back to Kevin. Part of their original plan, before Cecil was possessed.  
> He leaves Kevin, bloodstones and all, and storms over to Carlos, accusing him of tampering--which Carlos initially denies, but at the threat of physical violence from Cecil, he admits that he was able to recognize when Cecil was trying to influence him, so he faked it and pretended like he'd been influenced to get him to stop.  
> Cecil is instantly enraged, howling all manner of threats at him, accusing him of being a traitor, saying that Carlos lied about loving him--and he says that he feels the same way: he never loved Carlos, either. Then, he attempts to strangle Carlos with his tentacles, only to stop himself when he hears Kevin chanting something and realizes that he's got his bloodstones now.  
> Carlos tries to grab Cecil and stop him from attacking Kevin, but gets kicked in the face, busting his glasses.  
> Though Kevin is himself too wounded and weak to fight back, he produces a doppelganger that's strong enough to force Cecil away from him. Cecil is in disbelief--how could Kevin overpower him, especially weakened? At this point, Kevin reveals that he's remembered who he is, and how Desert Bluffs is his town and not Cecil's--which means he's the one with more power here. So where Cecil could always overpower him in Night Vale, now the tables are turned. His doppelganger pins Cecil.  
> Kevin calls to Carlos to get him something for the painkillers, or to grab Alicia, or get restraints--it's obvious he's starting to get confused even trying to talk. Cecil screams at Carlos not to betray him, but Kevin stops him momentarily from speaking.  
> Carlos makes his decision, and moves over by Kevin to ask what he needs; he has to hope that at least Kevin will be on his side, since Cecil no longer seems to be. But when he asks Kevin what he needs to get, Kevin doesn't respond anymore. He's just holding his head, silent, shaking. Carlos digs out a bottle of painkillers that Avery had given him--clearly, Avery was willing to help Carlos but not Kevin--and while he's trying to get a couple pills out to help Kevin, he tears his eyes away a bit too long.  
> Kevin seizes up and hits the floor, knocking his bloodstone circle apart, and Carlos tries to wake him up, genuinely distressed now that his newfound ally is having a seizure. Of course he can't snap Kevin back out of it, and Cecil is returning to his senses, so Carlos makes his decision and tries to escape the room with Kevin.  
> He has to pound on the door, yelling for someone to unlock it, but before Cecil can get to them both, somebody lets Carlos out with Kevin.  
> Cecil rushes to follow after them, but hits a locked door, and while he's screaming from the other side of it, Carlos notes that the woman who let him and Kevin out isn't familiar.  
> And she seems to know who Kevin is.
> 
>  
> 
> aaand that's a wrap for that chapter.


	42. The Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos meets the newcomers, and the group tries to think of a plan, despite some irreconcilable differences in opinion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't really think there's much in the way of warnings for this chapter. correct me if i'm wrong.

“I—yeah? He just... who are you?”

Cecil slammed against the door as furious background noise. Carlos couldn't help but flinch with every curse that came out of his mouth, and wonder at how long the door was going to hold him in.

He squinted, trying to make out the face of the newcomer as a tall friend of hers in a floral dress walked over and offered to take Kevin. Carlos hugged Kevin to his chest defensively.

“No—wait. Who are you people?” he asked again, more sternly he hoped. (He'd never been known as a stern professor.)

Dr. Kayali's voice came forward from behind them all, “Hand him over, Carlos. It's fine—they're friends.” She edged her way in past Tamika's small group, and her presence was comfort enough that Carlos released Kevin.

“Are they from the, um... I don't know, actually.” Carlos glanced from face to face, not that it did him any good. Megan had Kevin cradled like a child in her arms. Roger made a point of not looking at any of it. Dana was the next to step forward.

“Are you Carlos?” she asked. “I'm Dana—we spoke over the phone. Cecil was there?” She offered her hand, and in an awkward gesture, he shook it.

Carlos watched her a moment, her hand in his, and of course the blurry outline did nothing to trigger his memory, but he recognized her voice well enough. “Oh. Wait, so you're all from Night Vale?” It dawned on him that he'd expected to see far stranger than a group of ordinary looking people.

Dana nodded. “From old Night Vale, yes. We came to—actually, we probably ought to go, or something?” She took a few steps back again as Cecil's voice came through the door with renewed desperation.

He sounded more like a madman than he ever had, and certainly the things that any radio host had to report on sometimes—well, he'd never even sounded so rabid, then. “Give him back!” he was shrieking, “Get back in here! How dare you! I'll kill all of you!”

Carlos shuddered. “Um. Yeah. Let's.”

They started away to the sound of Cecil accusing them all of stealing Carlos from him, but he didn't seem to be making any kind of impact on the door. In fact, if anything he seemed more ineffectual than he'd ever been. Even on an ordinary day, Cecil might have just influenced somebody else to open the door for him.

If one thing could be said about the Smiling God, Carlos thought, it was that the Smiling God wasn't too terribly clever.

A few members of the Masked Army fell into place to guard the door in their absence. They mostly just crouched awkwardly beneath the low ceiling and sat there, uncomfortable and stiff with a madman yelling from the room next door. This wasn't nearly the sort of warfare any one of them had been anticipating.

“So tell us what happened in there, Carlos.” Tamika demanded information first. Dr. Kayali led the group to a safe space while the residents of old Night Vale fell in step near the back, with Carlos. He wasn't sure what to think, flanked on both sides by blurry strangers.

He looked at his hands, blood-stained he knew, but they looked like he'd been playing in ink instead. “I don't... know what to say. What happened? I don't know. A lot of... a lot.”

Dana spoke more softly, “I understand that it was probably traumatic. But, you know, it's helpful to know anything that might... I don't know. Give us some idea what's going on? Maybe how to fix stuff, or something?”

“You don't honestly think you're gonna figure out how to fix this shit do you?” Roger asked dismally. Megan elbowed him. His flinch suggested that if her hands weren't full, she'd have shoved him clean over for his unwelcome input.

Tamika remarked, “You're scientists, right? This is just another layer of necessary science information, or something. We need to know.”

“Don't be forceful. He's been through a lot,” Dana insisted.

Megan finally spoke, her low gruff voice surprisingly gentle. “It'll probably help Cecil. And Kevin. I guess if that's what you want.”

Carlos' gaze flicked from person to person, getting nothing out of the blurry mess that was his sight, or the rapidfire commentary shooting across him. Tell them. Help Cecil. Solve the mess. Don't bother, it's useless. Help Kevin? Was that even part of the plan? Help everyone.

He finally found a long enough silence to answer, “He tried to influence me, I guess I figured out pretty quick, so I played pretend. And he... made me dissect Kevin.” Carlos stuffed his hands into his pockets, ashamed. “I don't know. It was part of the act, and I thought, he looks so much like Cecil—it freaked me out but... ...he's not just another Cecil. That's not fair for me to just say that with another person—”

“He's Kevin,” Tamika interrupted. “I don't think you owe him any sympathy.”

A quiet murmur of agreement passed through the group.

Carlos frowned, looking down at Kevin, limp in Megan's arms. “I don't know. I mean, you... heard what Cecil was saying—that's what he was acting like. He's not like that though. I know he's not, but the Smiling God, and... ...I just think maybe the same thing happened to Kevin, that's all.” He sighed. “Kevin's why I'm out of there right now...and not dead.”

Dana laid a hand on his shoulder, in a manner he thought was meant to be comforting--but he jerked away. She frowned. “I know he helped you, Carlos, and I'm sure that means something. But you can't just forgive and forget on behalf of...all the people who he's killed.”

“That's not really your right,” Tamika agreed. “We've lost things at Kevin's hands—”

“Cecil's killed people too,” Carlos replied, surprised after he said it by how sharp it sounded as it left his mouth. He dropped into silence, and with him, so did the others for a length of time. They arrived at the lab that Kevin had left from, earlier; it was empty, but still arranged with his pile of rags in a bed, flecks of black blood on the floor, and most importantly with heavy enough doors to barricade if they felt they needed to.

Dr. Kayali said nothing about how much she worried that they'd need to, but ushered everyone inside and shut the doors behind them anyway.

“So, what are we doing in here?” she asked, looking over the assembled group. Most of them were Cecil's friends; they'd shown up rather abruptly and demanded to be taken to him without understanding the situation. Carlos and Kevin looked bizarre and ink-splattered, surrounded by everyone in clean clothing. Theo and Avery stayed near Dr. Kayali, separated from the strangers, of whom Carlos seemed to have become a member.

He realized that everyone around him looked to Tamika to answer.

"I imagine we need to find some way to get rid of the Smiling God," she began after a moment's pause. "If we want Cecil back, it's certainly no use to get him back the way that he is presently. He'll kill all of us."

Roger snorted. "Can always count on people ready to kill us."

"Not usually Cecil though," Dana replied with a frown. "We really do need to get rid of that... ...whatever has gotten into him."

Now, Carlos felt all eyes on him, as the only person who'd been in there the whole while with Cecil. He was just watching his friends from across the room, and didn't realize it was his turn to talk until Avery gestured at him and snapped him out of his trance.

"...Oh, what?" Carlos looked from person to person, looking for the threads of the conversation. "Get rid of the Smiling God? I don't know how we do that," he admitted. "I mean, when Kevin was killed, it moved to Cecil--it's a parasite, I suppose."

Dr. Kayali grimaced, "Well, yes, that much I suppose is obvious. There has to be some way of killing it, though."

He shrugged. "I don't know. We wait, maybe. See if, um, Kevin knows anything about it? I think he'd be the most likely to know." Carlos looked over again at his--he couldn't believe that some part of him was on the verge of considering Kevin a friend. An ally, at least, in this moment if in no other.

"And you would be willing to trust that he won't attempt to purposely deceive us?" Tamika challenged. "I'm not willing to take that risk--there must be something else to do."

Before Carlos could jump to Kevin's defense, Avery spoke, voice distant and thoughtful, "Do you think if we destroyed the host body, that it would kill the Smiling God as well?"

Just about everyone's expression twisted, but Dana was the one who spoke first, "How could you think of that? This is a rescue mission--"

They shook their head quickly. "No, no no no. That's not what I meant--I mean. Do you think maybe we could, like, get it out of Cecil and back into Kevin or--"

"That doesn't make it any better," Carlos argued.

"And tell me one way that it doesn't," Avery demanded.

Silence fell on the room, heavy as cement. Carlos looked from face to face; nobody was probably on his side, but nobody either had been there for Cecil to turn on them. It wasn't as easy as good and evil, anymore, and maybe in the same way that something as strange as Cecil had seemed after a while to be so wonderful... he wondered if there was more to this than any of them could understand.

"Killing can't be the answer," he finally said. "Then we're no better than anyone."

Avery scoffed. "Big deal, who cares? You think this is a game of who's the better person, Dr. C? Like we can just say oh, we've got our better-than-thou attitude and it fixes everything." They shook their head. "You know it doesn't. People are still dead. Disfigured. Missing family members. Even if we stop this shit right now we're still fucked for life, some of us."

Dr. Kayali couldn't make eye contact with Carlos as he looked to her for support; the look he received from Theo was no less distrusting than the glare that Avery was giving him. He didn't turn to look at anyone else who stood near him.

He didn't want to know how much the argument was already lost.

"Look, I... I know you think that it's a good idea to--"

"Carlos, please just stop," Dr. Kayali interrupted. "You weren't here before. You don't really know what you're talking about when you're defending... ...I don't think it particularly matters if Kevin helped you once. He's done a lot more harm to everyone than he's done to help anyone. I think we're all with Avery on this."

The silence that followed sounded like agreement. Carlos looked over at the limp form of Kevin, hanging in Megan's arms like a poorly-supported ragdoll.

"Fine," he murmured. "But I don't know how you're hoping to get the Smiling God to go back to him. The only thing that got it to leave in the first place was killing him, and we're all opposed to killing Cecil."

Nobody said anything for a length of time, stumped at the new conundrum.

Tamika finally broke the silence. "We'll find something to make it happen, then. If we can take down an army of brainwashed Strex minions, we can handle the Smiling God when it's alone and weak."

Again, silence, until Carlos spoke this time.

"Well, we're probably still going to need to talk to Kevin--it's likely that if anyone knows about the Smiling God, it would be him."

Even Tamika deflated somewhat at that fact; it was true enough, they couldn't just throw him to the dogs and have it all sort itself out. She sighed. "I suppose you're right. Then we talk to him under the guise of simply removing the Smiling God from Cecil--if he agrees to help, we say nothing else. Not that we're trying to give it back to him. Not that we have any ill intent toward him--we're counting on Kevin to believe we'll spare him if he helps."

Carlos grimaced and looked at his feet. "I don't know how you can feel right about that."

Dana replied, "I'm sorry, Carlos, but she's right. We can't risk him turning on us."

"Then isn't that implying that you already think he's on our side?" Carlos snapped, again surprised at his own hostility. He added, "Anyway, we don't even know what's going to happen. We can't just base our entire plan on Kevin. He's not in very stable condition--"

Avery interrupted, "Hold up. A minute ago you're all, hey, we need to count on Kevin--what now? What now, now you feel so bad we're gonna lie, and he suddenly isn't well?" They planted their hands on their hips. "Who's side are you even on right now, Carlos?"

"I would wager he's trying to buy for time," Theo remarked. "Very transparent, actually--and suspicious." They shook their head. "Not good."

Dana took a few steps away from him. "You... did say Cecil influenced you, didn't you?"

Carlos took a moment to get what she was driving at. "What? Whoa--hey. I said he tried to, he tried, he didn't do anything--"

"Well that's suspiciously exactly like someone would say who was being controlled," Avery retorted. "You know, Kevin beat the shit out of Carlos--why would any of us be expected to think that Carlos would side with someone who attacked him?"

He could hear murmuring from around him, Tamika measuring the likelihood that Carlos was being controlled, Roger insisting that anyone could be controlled, while Dana stayed conveniently silent. The only one now who would look in his direction was Avery.

Dr. Kayali looked away when he tried to make eye contact.

"What--why are you all..." Carlos began, haltingly. "I'm not being controlled, honest. It's me--it's Carlos--you guys know me."

Tamika replied, "Most of us don't know you, all things considered."

"Well then I wasn't talking to you!" he argued.

Megan shoved him this time, a warning stare directing him to back down, but she said nothing to him. Roger shook his head, and Dana stared at the floor.

"Listen, I'm--I'm appealing to your... I don't know. I'm not good at this, I don't know what you want me to say right now--you know what, why should I side with Cecil then? You know, he hurt me too." Carlos couldn't stop the words once they started coming out. "If we're just going by who's siding with people and who hurt people and--I should turn against all of you, maybe! We can't just. It's. That's not how any of this works!"

Avery scoffed. "Well, when you're right, you're right." They finally looked away now, unsure as they concluded, "I don't think we can trust you, Dr. C--or... whatever you are."

"How is that--what's that got to do with anything?" Carlos cried out, voice raising in pitch as he grew more desperate. "Now you're turning on me ? I didn't even do anything!"

He tried to turn to anyone he could for help, but nobody would look at him, not his friends, not the newcomers--nobody. Carlos backed away from the others, but his eyes fell on Kevin again; the only one in this who was more defenseless than he was.

The distraction was all it took to give Avery enough time to make the first move--and once they made a lunge for Carlos, others followed suit. Before he knew what hit him, Roger and Avery had him pinned while Tamika bound his hands with her own belt.

He struggled against their grip, crying out, "Stop! Stop, what are you--Hey!"

The older members of the group wouldn't look at him as he was tied up by a group of people who were--or could have been--students of his when he'd been a professor, and this University had been anything other than a death trap.

"I'm sorry, Carlos. It's for everyone's good until we're sure you aren't under control," Dana murmured. "I'm sure you, a scientist, understand."

He stopped struggling, taking a moment to rasp for breath before he spat out, "No. This isn't for anyone's good, this is--"

Roger stuffed a handkerchief in his mouth, tying it behind his head to gag him. It was the simplest way to end the argument.

Carlos squirmed but couldn't escape restraint as he was dragged toward the pile of rags on the floor of the room. Kevin was dropped in beside him a few moments later, bound as well despite being unconscious.

"Don't think we aren't keeping an eye on you, Dr. C," Avery muttered. "And don't you dare try and pull anything."

They walked away, and Megan followed; the group convened on the far end of the room to talk in hushed tones, too quiet for Carlos to hear.

He was close enough to make out Kevin's features, and he hoped, close enough to get a chance to talk to him before anyone else heard.

Both of their lives depended on it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now we've arrived at our final act, and everyone is a stranger.


	43. Divided

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback explores a bit of Kevin's own radio history. In the present, Carlos and Kevin plan an escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in a surprise twist, I post two chapters in one day and neither one has warnings.

Cecil had left the house again for his internship—Leonard Burton kept him at the station for increasingly longer hours, these days. He bragged that he would be getting the position any day now, as though he could somehow predict the exact moment it was predestined to occur.

It was nauseating hearing him talk about it. Every day at dinner. Their mother would stand in the doorway and hiss at them while Cecil bragged about NVCR and Kevin rolled his eyes and picked at whatever food she'd put together for them. Nobody asked him if he was doing anything interesting. He wasn't—he was staying home a lot, doing nothing a lot—but nobody even tried asking, anyway.

What little cluster of friends he could still gather up was quite small, but he was grateful for anyone who didn't keep their distance. It hadn't ever been easy keeping people around—it had only gotten harder since the incident that left him always with that invisible burn that he could convince nobody of. The third eye he couldn't open. For everyone's sake.

Kevin wasn't alone when he came up with the idea to test-record his own voice.

Alicia had always been able to laugh off his mood swings with a refreshing ease. That day, she sat watching Kevin pace across the living room as he talked his head off like he'd explode if he didn't.

“And I don't know, I feel like, I don't know. I'm not jealous, alright? I'm really not—maybe a bit, anyway. Less about the radio thing. I don't give a fuck about radio,” Kevin rambled, pacing past Earl who was a bit less comfortable with his moods than Alicia was.

“You bring it up a lot for someone who doesn't care,” Alicia remarked.

Kevin frowned. “Well, I don't care. I wanted—what I want is just to be normal again. I was normal, I was... maybe not happy, but who can be happy all the time, right? So it was fine, I was normal, and now I'm...” he trailed off, scouring his head for the word. He produced, “I'm a monster,” after a delay.

“More of a monster than Cecil?” Alicia asked. “I think you did roughly the same thing.”

Here, Earl nodded. “You both have the... the tentacles, right? And the third eye, and the... you're the same. He's just...” He trailed off with a sigh.

(They could have had something, him and Cecil, at least that's what Earl told himself sometimes. Something had happened. He wasn't sure what.)

Kevin couldn't disagree entirely. "Well, yeah I guess. I mean. It's different though."

"How's it different?" Alicia asked, sinking back into their seat. "And are you ever telling us why you sewed your eye shut? I think if we're discussing it, maybe discuss that."

He cringed. "Maybe not. Listen, maybe it's just... maybe I'm jealous. Fine." That was an easier admission than the truth about the strange light that had flooded his dreams since coming back. The quiet burn behind his eyelid, growing in intensity in a way he didn't want to think about. Building up. Vying for escape.

Earl offered, "Who says you couldn't be a radio host, too? Start your own or something, I mean. Like a little side thing."

"...That's kind of insulting," Kevin admitted with a grimace. Second to his brother, making fake little side-stations? Shameful.

"You know, he's got a point though," Alicia remarked. "If that's what you want to do. Nobody said you can't go into radio--actually, Cecil's worse off. The prophecy says he has to. I mean, what if he wanted to go into weird science or something?"

Kevin rolled his eyes. "I'm way better at weird science anyway. He's just good at talking." He crossed his arms, then uncrossed them, unsure of what to do with his hands.

Alicia sighed, "That's not what I'm--okay. You're a better weird scientist than Cecil. So? He couldn't do it anyway, even if he was good at it. You can do whatever you want though. You don't even have a prophecy telling you what to do!" They shook their head, "Everyone's got one, Kevin. We're all stuck but you're not."

He said nothing, but stopped pacing.

"Yeah, I mean, I know I'm supposed to be in Scouts for like, forever," Earl remarked. "You--you could leave tomorrow, you could do I guess anything? Is that how it works?" He looked to Alicia for support, they just shrugged; nobody knew what to do with someone who didn't have their future assigned.

Kevin sat down heavily on the couch, next to Earl. "I... never thought of it that way. What's that mean, then? How does anyone choose if they don't know?"

"Well, what do you want to do with your life?" Alicia asked.

He sat in silence, considering this. The things he could have done--he really did think a while on weird science, but that wasn't marketable because who wanted scientists? Maybe he would go into cooking? No. That was Earl's future. But every concept he kept turning up was somebody else's: try to go into politics, join the secret police, what was there left, anyway?

It kept drifting back into mind; finally he just answered, "I think I know where Cecil's tape recorder is. I bet he's got a tape or two left."

Alicia grinned. "Go get it. Let's see how your radio voice sounds."

Kevin hopped to his feet again, now just as excited. "Alright. I'm getting it."

He bolted up the stairs, leaving Alicia and Earl to wait in the living room while he rifled through Cecil's things. The tape recorder was hidden, protected, as it always had been; he pried at the lock on Cecil's desk drawer but it didn't budge.

His lock-picking tools hid away in the bookshelf, stuffed into hiding in one of the few places Cecil wouldn't look: municipally unapproved books. He pried out a title and flipped it open to pull out the toolkit--thank Earl for finding him one--and made his way back over to the desk. Cecil's drawer, supposed pinnacle of security, opened easily and he grinned at the contents, admiring them like he'd done a number of times before.

The tape recorder was loaded and ready to go, maybe part of the last time he'd seen Cecil trying to record--it wasn't so common, now that he was reporting for real. Kevin gingerly pulled the device from its nest of junk, and closed the drawer again.

Kevin shut his tools back into their hiding spot and reshelved the book, one of his personal favorites: "The Desert Bluffs: 101 Lies nobody told you about sand."

As he settled down next to Earl, his whole body felt electric, tingling, almost enough to ignore the usual burn. He watched the device in anticipation, and Earl and Alicia both watched him. Finally, all three of them realized that nothing was happening.

"Um, you probably need to turn the recorder on," Earl pointed out helpfully.

Kevin sank in his seat. "God, I know. I can't think of how to start."

"Do an opening address," Alicia suggested. "Like Leonard. Say something smart."

"But I can't just--then what? I can't use his opener. I mean I--I literally can't. It's not allowed, that's intellectual property theft, I'm pretty sure." Kevin poked at the tape recorder, but didn't press any buttons just yet.

Alicia laughed lightly. "Just make something up, then. It's a first try. It doesn't have to be perfect or anything."

He nodded, staring, waiting for the idea to come to him, and well. It wasn't. Maybe that was the way with art, inspiration really wasn't like how everyone said. So he turned it on anyway, and he threw out the best he could think of.

"There's something special in each of us. It's a light, and it burns like the center of the sun itself. I think some people call it inspiration."

He tried to keep a straight face as Alicia's expression twisted; they were trying not to laugh at the absurdity as well.

But he continued: "Good morning um... ...good morning, Desert Bluffs."

Alicia lost it, and Earl followed suit, laughing in a sort of awkward way that suggested he wasn't quite sure what was funny, but figured he was meant to be laughing. Kevin turned off the recording and at once sympathized with all the times he'd interrupted Cecil.

"What?" he complained. "You said to just make something up--that's what I did!"

"Desert Bluffs?" Alicia asked, giggling. "Where's that? Next to Canyon Truths?"

Kevin said nothing, staring at the tape recorder in disgruntled silence. He sunk back into his seat with a sigh. "Okay, fine. So it was probably a stupid name. Whatever."

Earl frowned, "Hey I... I didn't think it was that bad." He rested a hand comfortingly over one of Kevin's, a gesture that he'd seen Earl do with his brother a number of times before.

Suddenly feeling like an intruder in his own home, Kevin grabbed the tape recorder and told them both to leave. "This. This was a stupid idea. Just go. Pretend you didn't see it."

"Hey, come on. Now you're just being overdramatic," Alicia complained. "It wasn't that bad, you were doing alright! You'll have a real place to report for soon enough--"

Kevin pointed to the door. "Out. Don't make me make you."

He didn't need to say another word as the reality of how easily he could do it sunk in; he wasn't really on equal footing with either of them. He could make them do anything he wanted.

Once he was alone again, Kevin pulled out the tape and unspooled it, more slow and painful than he'd ever destroyed one of Cecil's. He stuffed the tape recorder back in its drawer, locked it tight again, vowed to drop the concept entirely.

But the idea had taken hold of him, and it wouldn't be the last time he tried.

* * *

 

In what seemed like another life, Kevin slowly came to his senses. Everything was dark, dark as it had ever been light, peaceful as it had ever been blinding. Wait. Blinding. That's right. He was blind.

The ache that spread through his body was impossible to ignore, eating away at whatever focus he had left. He tried to figure out what was going on, moved forward, and headbutted Carlos in the nose.

"Hey, hey," Carlos hissed through gritted teeth. "Don't say anything just--you're with me, we're not alone though. They've got us tied up."

Kevin waited while the thought processed itself in his head, and tried to reconcile where he was with thoughts he couldn't entirely grasp. Who he was. Where he'd been. What had happened. Vaguely, he remembered that voice laughing over him in a very strained way as somebody pulled him open and tore him apart.

The memory skipped away just as quickly, replaced by another: he was Carlos. He was a scientist, he was Cecil's boyfriend. For some reason, he corrected that in his head, and thought twice. Cecil had turned on both of them. That's right.

"Where are we?" he whispered, taking the cue for silence.

Carlos answered, "In a lab. Different one from Cecil. I--I tried to defend you and they tied me up. You're on my side, aren't you?" His voice sounded desperate, as desperate as anyone could sound in a quiet whisper.

Kevin said nothing for a period, ruminating. "Defend...me?" he asked finally.

"You know about the Smiling God, don't you?" Carlos asked. "We need you to help us get rid of it, Cecil's dangerous, and..." he trailed off only a moment, and then decided, to hell with it; he was already Kevin's co-conspirator, as far as everyone else was returned. "They all want to try and put the Smiling God back in you. And try to destroy it. Please, if you know anything--this... this is for your own life as well as all of ours."

A silence passed between the two of them, and Carlos let it happen. He wasn't sure what he'd just done, whether Kevin was going to turn out to be against him all along, whether he'd be right and everything would be fixed--the paranoia hadn't crossed his mind before he'd spoken.

Since arriving in the room, he'd spent a while laying there feeling stiff and sore. That was about it. Nobody came to check on either of them, except to make sure that Kevin hadn't woken up just yet. Tamika took off for the other lab with Avery and Megan behind her. To go talk to Cecil, or to try anyway.

Most of the talking at the far end of the room was just between Dana and Dr. Kayali, but Carlos couldn't make out a lick of it. They could have been talking about anything.

In reality, Dana was leading the discussion, while anyone left in the room mostly just listened. "It does get a bit hard to know for sure. I mean, we've all done some really strange things, haven't we?" She looked to Roger for agreement, the only one left in the room who knew what she was talking about.

"Yeah, I guess. Scouts got pretty weird," he agreed.

Dana nodded. "Even just in scouts. Maybe there's some sense in it--I don't know. I've been mayor for a while, I've seen a lot of strange things happen, and a lot of things nobody can do anything about."

"I'm still not sure that forgiving Kevin is ever the proper choice," Theo argued.

She shook her head. "Not what I was suggesting, either. Because it's not, it's... that would be a really bad choice. But maybe he's on our side, anyway. What if everyone else can get out of here alive? Would you kill him just because you can?"

"Yes." Dr. Kayali didn't hesitate. "I would. I don't know why you wouldn't."

Dana sighed. "I don't know. I think about it, of course. I'm thinking a lot about it. But I don't know what that would even do. If Kevin is like Cecil."

A silence passed. Theo asked, "Are you approaching this from a logistical standpoint, or emotional? Because your argument's really... all over the place here."

"I know. I'm not very good at debate," she admitted. "I never really had to do it, I just sort of stepped into my job--nevermind. That's not what this is about. I guess I'm coming from a place where... both matters. We don't want to mess anything up. But if the Smiling God is just a parasite, and Kevin didn't do anything--...maybe the answer isn't to forgive him. I wouldn't want to, either. But just let him go, and move on."

Dr. Kayali asked, "How can you be sure he wouldn't be a danger later?"

"Well, ideally, we'll make the choice only once we're sure," Dana admitted.

Near the other end of the room, Carlos and Kevin were easy enough to mistake for sleeping. They spoke in whispers that could have been mistaken for breaths.

"You need to tell me what you know about the Smiling God," Carlos insisted. "If we can get rid of it--I think there's still a chance you can get out of this safely, too."

Kevin hesitated. "Why... why help me? You know what I did."

"I do," Carlos agreed, "And it sounds like you do too. But you didn't do it again. You helped instead--you got me out of there alive. I... I have to believe you're on my side." For both the sake of safety and sanity, it had to be true.

Rather than offer any reasonable reply, Kevin lay there in silence for a few moments before Carlos realized that he'd started crying. What was visible of his face beneath the bandaging was contorted into a miserable expression, his tears soaked through the bandages, still bloody, but he tried not to make a sound.

Carlos frowned, and half considered trying to break his hands free, but he couldn't risk the movement and have anyone find them awake. He inched closer to Kevin. "Hey. I'm... I'm sorry, I don't know what I said. Don't cry though. I won't let them just kill you."

Instead of stopping his tears, Carlos' words only served to prolong them, until Kevin was having trouble keeping silent. Carlos kept trying to calm him down, and every insistence of kinship and trust just hit harder.

Kevin wasn't sure how often anyone ever had anything nice to say to him.

Finally, his crying calmed again, and as he lay there, Carlos recognized the edge of a silhouette he saw creeping from underneath Kevin's shirt; for all the damage he'd done, he'd left Kevin's tentacles in-tact.

Every nerve in his body screamed out for him to say something, to try and get out of there, but Carlos clamped his eyes shut and gritted his teeth.

Slowly, gingerly, Kevin's tentacles reached out to wrap around him. It took a moment for Carlos to realize that Kevin wasn't attacking him, but hugging him instead. He stuffed his face into Kevin's shoulder and thought how odd, that he was so similar to Cecil and yet so different.

Moments later, his hands and feet were freed. Kevin whispered to him, "We need to get out of here quickly. Before anybody notices."

Carlos nodded his reply, invisibly to Kevin's blind eyes but tangible from physical touch.

Kevin untied his own restraints and pulled his tentacles back into hiding again. He'd already had three of them removed; Carlos was sure that was something he wouldn't want to risk happening again. Couldn't blame him. A pang of guilt struck him that he'd helped tear Kevin apart, as well, but he marveled somewhat at how the man kept moving with his heart cut out.

His movements weren't as smooth as Carlos', though. He wasn't sure if Kevin would be able to sit, he was shaking so badly even lying down. Carlos wanted to search himself for more painkillers, but he knew not to expect them anywhere.

"I don't know if I can carry you," he admitted. "Do you think you can run?"

"Probably not," Kevin muttered. "I'll try."

Carlos nodded, and placed one hand on Kevin's arm to help him up. "On three?"

The countdown began, but didn't get past two before Dr. Kayali's voice interrupted both of them, and the escape that they were planning. "How the hell did you get your hands free?"

Quickly sitting, Carlos pulled Kevin into his arms before he consciously realized what he was doing; he'd gone on the defensive to protect a stranger from a friend he'd known for years. "Sylvia, please--"

She interrupted, "Don't. I'm not letting you out, I'm sorry, but it's for everyone's good."

Dr. Kayali crouched to try and bind them again, and that was when Kevin lashed out in his own show of defense. With surprising speed, she found herself snatched up into the air by the tentacles he'd only just hidden moments before--some parts of his reactions were still fast enough to fight back.

"Damn it--Carlos, this is what I'm talking about!" she yelled, struggling against Kevin's grip. "Let me go--damn it. Let me go!"

At her sudden change in volume, the others ran over--with four against two, it didn't matter that Kevin had a few tricks up his sleeves. Roger had a knife out from his back pocket before he'd even made it over.

Carlos wrapped his arms more tightly around Kevin's shoulders and said to him, quietly, hoping: "Let go of her. Please, Kevin. I won't let anyone here hurt you."

"That doesn't work!" he cried, voice loud, but cracking. Kevin burst into renewed tears and cling to Carlos, face pressed against his chest like a terrified child trying to hide from a very bad dream, and he couldn't wake from it.

"Let her go, Kevin!" Carlos yelled, loud enough to take everyone by surprise. He'd more than met Kevin in volume, and surprisingly, in desperation as well.

The tentacles unwound themselves from Dr. Kayali's waist and arms. He set her once again on her feet, and with that done, just sobbed into Carlos' shirt and said nothing else.

Carlos looked up at the faces of friends, strangers, people who were supposed to be on his side and he sincerely hoped that they would be as he asked them as sincerely as he could:

"Please. Don't hurt him. Kevin is on our side."

Roger kept advancing until Dana grabbed his arm, and pulled him back. She shook her head; the moment was over. And he hid his knife away once more.

Dr. Kayali answered, "If he's on our side, then prove it."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story seems to become exponentially less violent whenever the Smiling God isn't in the room. first we had the violence following Kevin, now it's following Cecil. whoa. non-violent Kevin chapters??
> 
> this is heading in some kind of direction.


	44. The Informant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin undergoes a soft interrogation. Some minds are changed, others struggle with where to go on from here. A story surfaces, about a happy little company called Strex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no warnings!

“No, no. You don't just will the Smiling God away. It digs into you. Every part of you. Tells you all your failings—offers to help you get better.”

Kevin dropped into silence. His conversation was pretty stop and go—he'd space out easily and forget what he was saying altogether, from time to time. It was still more straightforward information than Cecil had ever told anyone.

Carlos tapped at his arm. “Kevin. Hey. You with us still?”

He and Kevin were seated upright now in the pile of rags, or well, as upright as Kevin could even hold himself. He was mostly leaned against Carlos, who was mostly silent in the conversation as Dana and Dr. Kayali tried to lead discussion with their half-responsive prisoner.

“Alright, but you still haven't explained to us what the Smiling God even does,” Dana pointed out. “I get that it's a parasite. It lies. It... whatever. What's it about ? What's it for?”

Kevin frowned. “I don't...? What's the question?”

“What's the driving force that keeps the Smiling God going?” Dr. Kayali tried.

“Like its...? It feeds off the host,” he replied as though it were an obvious answer.

Dr. Kayali pursed her lips, considering this reply, and then clarified: “Not the actual energy source. I gathered that if it requires a host, it's using the host for energy—I mean more along the lines of motivation. What is it that the Smiling God is trying to accomplish?”

“Oh, that,” Kevin answered, and said nothing else. He lapsed back into vacant silence again, unresponsive as Carlos prodded at him to snap him back out of it again.

Nobody was exactly sure what his damage was. Well—physically they were pretty sure they knew. A screwdriver through some part of the brain (frontal lobe at least, how deep could a screwdriver go?), his missing eyes, his missing heart. But he was still up and interacting with everyone, regardless.

(Carlos thought a lot about Cecil's perfectly healthy condition, in comparison. Kevin, identical in so many ways, could have been a preview of his fate. He hoped not.)

Kevin sunk against Carlos, exhaustion obvious on his features, but he finally organized an answer enough to speak. “It just... it destroys things,” he murmured. “It destroys everything. I don't know why. It's not... it's not like it ever made me feel better, doing it. It just felt like it needed to happen.”

“Why is that?” Dr. Kayali tried asking. “You must have been doing it for some reason—I don't believe it could be without reason.”

He frowned. “I didn't say it had no reason. I don't know the reasons. It just... wants to erase. It wants people to destroy each other. It wants me to destroy people—it wants Cecil now to do it. And it's... infectious. I don't know if he's figured out how to use it yet, since... Carlos seems okay.”

Kevin turned like he was looking at Carlos, though he clearly couldn't see a thing. Carlos wasn't sure how to respond, but he agreed, “I'm... yeah. I'm okay. His influence didn't get me.”

“No, it... changes it,” Kevin replied. “And maybe he doesn't know. So he tried the other way.”

Dr. Kayali interrupted their exchange, “What are you talking about, his influence? Is that anything like whatever you've been doing to people?”

He shuddered, but nodded. “It... works differently. Once the Smiling God has you. Then its light—the bright, sunny, wonderful—fuck.” Kevin shook his head to clear his thoughts. “...It fed off me, so my influence... didn't work. Nothing I used to do worked. But I could still... use the Smiling God's own will to bend people. And sometimes, it helped.”

“Helped with what, exactly?” Dana asked incredulously.

“A... a lot of things. Companionship? Business partnerships? Feeling less alone in a broken and worthless fucking desert of a world?” Kevin grimaced, the scars in his cheeks always resisting any anger or sadness. “I don't know. I thought it would help—I thought, if I made people like me...but they didn't like me. It... made them crazy. Violent.”

Theo scoffed. “Well you're hardly one to talk.”

Dr. Kayali waved a hand at them for quiet. “This is valuable information for stopping it. Kevin—what happens to people who the Smiling God... uh, influences, I guess?”

He frowned. “A lot of things. They smile a lot more, you think they're happier—they seem happier—we all feel happier. And then you remember that predatory animals bare their teeth in displays of aggression. But they're so happy about it, and they'll be your friend—anyone's friend. Coworker. Whatever! It doesn't matter, right?” He laughed a little, then trailed off into silence.

The others waited again for him to continue, only he didn't.

Carlos shook him. “Kevin...? Kevin. Come on.”

“But! Then they turn on you,” Kevin continued, as though he hadn't missed a beat. His voice grew in strength and enthusiasm. “See, I knew a very nice girl, once. She was so good at what she did—she ran this business, okay? She ran a company that made prosthetic limbs, it was so interesting. And she was so super into helping people who were hurt. Which doesn't say much about why I knew her!”

Kevin laughed. “I met her over a radio interview, actually. We were talking, and talking—she wanted me to get the word out, so she could find more people to help! And I thought, wow, now here's someone who really cares about other people. And so I invited Lauren back again. And we started talking, I even gave her my number! I mean, we really hit it off.”

“...but she just wanted me for publicity.” His voice fell in volume almost instantly. The tone shift seemed to change the atmosphere of the room. “So I got mad. Lauren, I said, why didn't you just tell me you only wanted me for my broadcast? She said she thought I was amazing, and I thought it was a compliment, only it was just about the things I could do—my influence. Well, the Smiling God's influence. I only influenced with normal words mostly. But she knew about it, I don't know how, and said if I used it, I could get her more investors—I could grow her company.

So, I don't know. I guess I did. But that was in a good time. And... and the good times, they never last. And she didn't even want to be my friend, she just—” he cut off, shaking his head.

“I hate Lauren Mallard. Hate her. I hate her stupid smile and her stupid business scheme and her stupid Strex and her stupid fix-everyone and her stupid... she told me I was doing great and she said I'd keep getting her more employees and I don't know, I didn't think... I thought they were all just so happy . And then she made me mad, and so I... did it to her, too.”

Kevin lapsed into silence, guilt obvious on his face in a way that unsettled the others. Nobody dared interrupt his rant, waiting for him to continue, in case he said something important.

(Carlos gave his hand a squeeze, imperceptible to the others, but Kevin squeezed back.)

“...she was so... so much nicer, after. She thought everything I did was so great—she was so proud of me. We were all so happy, and she offered me a job when Strex started taking over Desert Bluffs, so I took it. We were all a great happy family of coworkers—no. Friends.” He frowned. “That's what we all called each other. And Lauren would always come in and see how my broadcasts were going, and then she started giving me things to report on, and telling me all these rules—

I'm not like Cecil. I've...never liked living by rules like Cecil did! And she wanted to change my very personality—to make me say things on the radio I would never say. And act like some puppet for Strex! So of course I wouldn't do it... ...and then she took my eyes out.”

He reached up to place his hands over his bandaged eyes, which by now seemed to be healing enough to have stopped bleeding, at least. Kevin's face was twisted up into an expression somewhere between his ever-present smile, and betrayal. “She said to me, Kevin, you need to be upgraded. Those eyes of yours—they need glasses, that's sending out a bad image for the company if our spokesperson is broken and needs glasses. How was Strex supposed to spread if they sent the wrong message about their prosthetic eyes?”

Dr. Kayali replied, “Avery told me about the one you gave him. Sounds like a piece of garbage if you ask me—what kind of crackpot company was this?”

“I... I don't know. It's not even like it was ever... good. Maybe that was why they did it. I could only read their teleprompters after that, so I had to report from those... or just ad-lib it. And I'd get in trouble—the eyes had... electrical shocks in them.”

Theo spoke next, “And you gave one to a student? What the hell is—”

“Wrong with me?” Kevin completed. “A lot. There's nobody to generate the shock anymore. So it doesn't matter. And I thought it was better than having only one eye.”

Silence fell over the room, with each looking to one another for some input, some suggestion where the conversation was going next. Carlos quietly calculated something in his head, the gears turning slowly until he asked, “Wait. How did you install a prosthetic eye into someone else's head, anyway? The amount of surgical knowledge that would require—let alone the necessary tools. How is that, when Cecil barely even understands what science is?”

Kevin shrugged. “I memorized the Strex handbook.”

“They had that detailed of a handbook?” Dr. Kayali asked, a bit in disbelief.

He faltered. “Well, it wasn't the basic handbook. I thought... it might be useful someday if something happened to my eyes. If I understood—now I wish I'd made another pair, earlier.” Kevin sighed. “They weren't much, but they were eyes.”

“You can talk me through it later and maybe I can make something,” Carlos offered.

“Carlos, don't. He's not our ally,” Dr. Kayali warned. “This is only for information.”

But he couldn't just agree with that. He looked down at Kevin, who was leaned against him, half in his lap. Looking almost like Cecil, but not quite, because that wasn't who he was. Who he looked like. He just looked like Kevin, whoever that was. Some kind of scientist, some kind of radio host, maybe some kind of immortal, or who knows.

Carlos frowned. “I don't believe in just using someone for information and turning against them once they aren't useful anymore. That seems... wrong.”

“It's not turning on him,” Dana argued. “He already knows we're really not allied. We'd be turning on him if that was a secret.”

Dr. Kayali nodded agreement. “We aren't deceiving anyone, Carlos.”

He tried to argue again, and Kevin stopped him: “It's fine. They're right. Just because I sound more... sympathetic now... I'm still dangerous, Carlos. I don't know. It's gone away but—but I don't know, if it comes back. What happens if it does?”

“The Smiling God?” Carlos asked.

Kevin nodded, and lapsed back into silence. The group remained this way again, until the final member of the group finally broke his silence. Roger spoke up quietly, at first, and then more loudly once he realized that it was alright to keep talking. “You grew up with my dad, didn't you? Both of you guys. Dad's told me about when you were kids, together. Not a lot. But he said some things.”

(Carlos prodded at Kevin until he paid attention. He muttered an apology under his breath.)

“...your dad?” Kevin asked. “I don't even know you.”

Roger answered, “I'm Earl's son. Earl Harlan, you remember him, right? He remembers you.”

As much as he wished he didn't, Kevin remembered. He remembered watching his brother tear Earl apart, the first time the Smiling God had made itself known. He remembered kissing Earl in secret, pretending like he was Cecil and all the lovely things he'd had said about him. And he remembered that they hadn't ended on a very good note.

(Kevin was already an outcast in Night Vale by then. Cecil had made sure of it. A few months later, he would leave to find the city of Desert Bluffs.)

“I didn't know Earl was still alive,” slipped out of his mouth before he could stop it.

Roger's hesitation showed his unease in a way that his facial expression, which wasn't visible to Kevin, couldn't. His father's eventual death being talked about so flippantly—that was weird, right? He was allowed to call that weird? “Yeah, he's still alive? Was he not supposed to be?” he asked.

Kevin shook his head. “He's supposed to be alive. Nevermind.”

(Why had he said that? Earl was as good as dead to him. Even if they could have had something, someday. They'd just been kids then. Kevin was just jealous.)

“He told me about you,” Roger repeated, and then to the others in the group, “My dad told me what it was like as a kid. I dunno. Maybe we can trust him.”

Dana frowned. “Roger, honey, I know you think your father's got all the answers, but that was a long time ago. So long ago—things have changed, for everyone.”

“Please, Dana, don't talk to me like I'm a kid,” Roger muttered. “I'm not a kid anymore. And... I don't think he's really a good person, and dad's not right about everything but... he did say Kevin was a horrible liar, and I think he's right with that.”

Kevin sat in silence, initially seeming like a stunned reaction until it became obvious he'd apparently fallen asleep, leaned against Carlos. This time, he made no attempt to wake Kevin, but let him sleep on and even repositioned him to a more comfortable spot. It was better if he wasn't awake while they were talking about him. Carlos agreed: “I don't think he's trying to deceive us.”

“I wouldn't be so sure of that,” Dana answered. “Cecil's lied to me a lot and I... I always fall for it, honestly. The real lies, at any rate. Not the little white lies in conversations. He's terrible at those.”

Roger rebutted, “He's not the same as Cecil, though.”

“And what makes you so quick to turn onto his side?” Dr. Kayali argued, tone defensive. “He's killed our friends, he's killed people's family members—why side with him?”

“It's... safe, enough anyway,” Roger explained, vaguely.

Carlos looked over Kevin, asleep in his lap. Safe enough? He might've said that Kevin couldn't hold up a fight against anyone, right now, if he hadn't seen how quickly he lashed out at Dr. Kayali earlier—he still had as good a shot as anyone, fighting back. Would he? That was an entirely different question, and one he wasn't sure of.

“What did your father have to say about Kevin, anyway?” Dana asked. “I never even knew that they knew each other. I guess I just... figured he moved away fast enough, nobody knew him—because I sure never met him. But I didn't grow up with Cecil, either.”

Roger snorted. “Well, he didn't say he knew anything either until that whole crazy Strex thing, I dunno. It's not like I grew up knowing. I pretty much figured out Kevin existed the same time everyone else did, and thought he was a double like all of ours.” He shrugged. “Dad told me he wasn't, and that's why he looked a little different.”

“Right, yeah, the doubles,” Dana murmured. “That was a weird storm.”

“He said he knew Kevin after... I guess it must've been after the Smiling God thing? He stitched up his eye or whatever.” Roger gestured as though sewing up an invisible third eye on his head. “And he got sort of weird and shit, I guess. But dad never said Kevin hurt him.”

Dr. Kayali sighed. “That doesn't prove anything, kid. Obviously a lot's changed since then. Again, why should we take your father's word at something that happened... I don't know, a long time ago?”

“Because he said Cecil did,” Roger insisted. “Hurt him, I mean. And I mean, we all trust him. We trust Cecil, don't we?”

Theo answered, “I don't trust him.” They got a few lame looks for voicing that basically pointless opinion in the middle of the conversation.

Dana replied softly, “Roger, I don't think Cecil—”

“Come on,” he interrupted, “It's not like... like Cecil just hit him or something. He freaked out! Like, dad said he figured out he died. Kevin told him. I guess... I don't know what he wanted to prove, or whatever, telling him. We checked though. The city records said it's true, too. Dad died.”

This received an accepting nod from Dana, and Carlos was almost ready to accept it all the same, but Dr. Kayali protested. This was getting to be a bit too much. “He died? I'm sorry, but the dead don't just come back to life, kid.”

Roger pointed at Kevin, saying nothing.

“That doesn't prove anything,” she insisted. “He's not even human. Maybe for all we know he wasn't even dead in the first—”

“That's not what I was trying to say,” he replied. “I don't know what he is. Or Cecil. They bring people back, though. That's what my dad said Kevin told him. He said he brought dad back, I mean... maybe he can undo some of the damage, or something.”

Dana agreed, “It's true, Sylvia. People have come back before. I don't... know about Kevin doing anything like that, but I imagine Cecil must have, before.”

Dr. Kayali said nothing, looking down at Kevin, who was laid in Carlos' lap in a position that looked rather unnatural, to her. Stiff, like he was tensed up, and certainly wasn't asleep. She decided not to say anything to the effect that he was eavesdropping, but didn't say anything else of value after that. “I still can't imagine how that's possible.”

“I... sort of can,” Carlos muttered.

She sighed. “Don't be ridiculous, Carlos. People don't just wake up from the dead. I've never heard anything so unscientific—”

“Sylvia, look where we are,” he interrupted. “We're... ...I don't even know! In the middle of some desert somewhere. And there's giant masked people in the hall. And I took out someone's heart and he woke back up. And I don't think there's any point in just saying everything makes perfect scientific sense anymore.”

Dr. Kayali stared at him in disbelief, having expected nothing of the sort to ever leave his mouth.

Carlos continued after a moment. “I just... think maybe science is more complicated than we think, or something.” He was trying to salvage his own untimely denial.

(He was a scientist, and this wasn't science. It may as well have been some strange fever-dream, and he'd never felt so lost in his life, but he stopped thinking about that. He thought about the weight of Kevin laying in his lap, and thought about the smell of Cecil huddled up against him, though he didn't have that to return to, now.)

“I don't know, Carlos. I don't understand any of it,” Dr. Kayali sighed. “And I know I'm not the only one who's totally lost. But if... you think you know what you're doing—and I guess if you think the same thing, Dana. Maybe I'll have to trust that somebody else knows better than me.”

Dana nodded. “We can all figure something out. Tamika said she would only be maybe an hour, tops? They'll come back, we can all discuss it.”

“And... if people can really just come back. I hope that somebody can bring back the students that died here,” Dr. Kayali muttered.

A murmur of agreement went up through the room before everyone fell into silence, once more.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really know what to say about this chapter. i've been struggling with it, and it still doesn't look perfect to me. but hopefully you guys will enjoy it anyway.
> 
> my update schedule will probably continue to be pretty spotty for a while. i'm taking too many classes this semester, and haven't had much time to write. but i give you my word that this story is going to be finished. no way in hell i've written this much just to leave it abandoned.
> 
> as always, kudos are great, comments make my day, and you're all awesome.
> 
> thanks for reading.


	45. Corridors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tamika, Megan, and Avery check up on Cecil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no warnings.

Avery's feet slid on the tile as they turned a sharp corner, calling out ahead of them, "Tamika! Turn left--left!"

It wasn't easy giving instructions in a wild sprint down the school corridors. Tamika took off quicker than the other two could muster, and was nearly out of sight already. Avery ran at a faster clip than Megan, but they were tiring out, and she was catching up, and they were both counting on Tamika to outrun them, anyway. Hoping she was fast enough.

It had started out seemingly alright. They'd had the upper hand.

The three of them had nodded to the guards seated outside Cecil's door, when they'd first approached. They were hunched, too tall to be comfortable indoors, but not as large as Doug or Alicia, who only came inside when they absolutely had to. The masked men had said nothing and stayed quiet, watchful, like statues as Tamika walked up to knock at the door.

"Cecil? I know you're in there," she called. "We need to talk."

No answer came at first. Megan offered, "Maybe he's asleep."

"I doubt that. He's probably upset with us," Tamika muttered. She tried again, a little louder. "Cecil! I think we can sort something out if we just discuss this like rational people."

Avery sighed, leaning against the wall. This wasn't how this school was ever supposed to be used. Locking people up in lab rooms, people dissecting each other, killing each other, keeping each other prisoner. They'd never in their wildest dreams imagined.

After a delay, Cecil finally answered from the other side, close enough that he must have been pressed up to the door. "I would like to discuss with you, Tamika. Open the door?"

She scoffed. "Cute, but no. We can discuss just fine, here."

"Well, then what are we discussing?" he asked, his voice sweet like he wanted something. Of course he wanted something. Wasn't going to get it, though.

Tamika exchanged glances with the others; she hadn't actually imagined him cooperating. So what had they come to discuss? Megan took her turn to speak. "Tell us about the Smiling God?" She hated that she sounded so uncertain, but it was a start.

Cecil laughed lightly. "Smiling God? Surely, I have no idea--"

"Cut the crap, Cecil," Tamika snapped. "I haven't gotten this far by being gullible."

A long silence passed between them while Cecil seemed to be considering how to answer. But then he didn't say anything, just kept up with the quiet, and it became obvious he wasn't going to answer the question.

Tamika tried again, "Cecil. Tell us about the Smiling God. We want to know how to help you--anything we can do to help you."

He laughed. "I could do better than tell you about the Smiling God if you opened this door. I could show you." Cecil's hands tapped against the metal of the door rhythmically. "Don't scientists like that? Seeing things for themselves? Tell the scientists, I'll show them. They should come here."

Avery cringed, feeling that demand was directed at them. "Nobody's letting you out," they insisted. "Not us, not... 'the scientists'. Or whatever you wanna call 'em."

"Then just give me back the one I want," Cecil hissed. "You had no right taking Carlos from me."

Avery went to refuse, but Megan shushed him, knowing a little better how Tamika's planning worked. The girls exchanged a short glance before Tamika answered again. "Of course. You know, he's been missing you a lot, already," she explained. "Inconsolable. But. We have to make a deal, don't we?"

"Inconsolable?" Cecil asked, a quiver in his voice before he replied sharply, "I'm not making deals--give him back to me."

"Look, your influence clearly isn't working, Cecil. I can tell you're trying," Tamika went on. "I think it would just be better for all of us if we made a deal--we'll give you back the scientist if you tell us what we want to know."

Avery added, "You can have Kevin, too--do whatever you want with him." They weren't sure why they said it. Turned out it was a mistake.

Cecil's volume suddenly doubled, "You were supposed to burn the body!"

Tamika chimed in, raising her voice above even his, "Cecil! If you cooperate with us--if you agree to help--you can do whatever you want with him. Burn him if you want. I don't care." By the end, she'd quieted to a calm level; Cecil was listening.

"Of course," he replied. "What do you want to know?"

"What does the Smiling God want?" Tamika asked.

A lapse into silence turned into quiet laughter, which rose in pitch until Cecil answered, still with that laughter in his voice, "What does the Smiling God want? It doesn't want , it's a nothing , it's the nothing. The undoing. If it wants anything at all--it only wants nothing."

"Then why brainwash people, why not just kill them?" Avery asked, worried as the words came out that they might have suggested a new idea to Cecil.

That wasn't the case. He just chuckled and replied, "Chaos."

"It's too hard doing it alone," Megan muttered, quiet enough so that Cecil couldn't hear her. "I think it likes using other people to mess stuff up more."

Avery nodded. That made sense.

"Did you want to know anything else?" Cecil asked sweetly. "I would like to see my Carlos again, and soon. So don't keep me waiting."

Tamika considered this. She asked, "What about the Void?"

"A perfect companion, isn't it?" Cecil replied. "I shouldn't have any trouble exerting my influence now --not like before. With that... ...Kevin." He scoffed. "It should go more smoothly than ever."

Avery felt all the hair stand up on the back of their neck. That change in tone meant something, and they knew the others felt it too. Tamika stepped back from the door and initiated a huddle, whispering quietly enough so that Cecil couldn't hear it: "I think we're talking to it--what do we ask it?"

"I don't know, what'd you ask a god if you ever met one?" Avery questioned.

Tamika's expression hardened. "It isn't a god--and don't call it that."

"Ask what was wrong with Kevin?" Megan suggested, uncertain. "It might be useful to know. In case it's anything we can do to make it leave."

A moment passed, and Tamika nodded before returning to her spot at the door. "I think we're all curious out here--what's wrong with Kevin, anyway? We've been trying to get rid of him. He seems just as durable as you."

Cecil--or whatever was controlling Cecil--laughed. "Durable? I never said he wasn't durable. There isn't anything else he's good for. Perhaps carving flesh."

Avery cringed but asked, "Why isn't he dead? Carlos took out his heart."

"Don't talk to me about Kevin," he hissed back, apparently done with the questions. "I want the scientist back, and I want him back now. So do it."

Tamika answered, "Look. I'm sorry to do this to you, but I'm afraid you don't just get Carlos back like that. We're going to have to set you straight, first."

His fists slammed on the other side of the door. His voice rose. "You deceived me!"

Avery laughed, "Yeah, sorry dude," and Megan and Tamika both gave them a look. That maybe wasn't the single most appropriate thing to be saying right now.

"Listen, Cecil. We'll be back later," Tamika said, content to end the interrogation now that she'd spoiled her fictional 'deal' with him. It wasn't much good asking questions, anyway. He was clever enough not to give things away.

And angry enough that he was still slamming against the door, demanding that he be let out, even as the three of them walked away and left him behind, still locked in that lab, seemingly guarded and well under control.

"Well, that went splendidly," Avery remarked.

Tamika rolled her eyes. "I wasn't expecting it to solve the whole problem, you know. I just hoped that it was going to give more of an indication of what we were dealing with."

"Well that thing doesn't like Kevin, but that's all I got out of that, I don't know about you."

Megan interjected. "Shut up, Avery."

They scowled at the sudden command, ready to have something to say until they realized that she hadn't shut them up out of malice. Rather, they'd been walking down the hall, back toward the lab, and the pounding from behind them had gone deathly silent after one final crash.

"Should we go back and...?" Megan began.

Avery replied quickly, "What, and see if he's gotten out? Fuck that."

A cry came from behind them, unearthly, unreal--and it couldn't have been anything other than one of the masked men. Generally so mute, only made a sound when they had to, the volume enough to make anyone's ears hurt. Avery stood in a daze for the next few moments before they realized that it was time to run--Tamika and Megan were running. Time to run, too, and they'd worry about that ringing in their ear later.

As they ran, Avery tried to call instructions out ahead, and assumed it had to be working, because Tamika kept taking proper turns. Even if their own ears were buzzing, hers must have worked, and the words that sounded foreign in Avery's mouth came out clear enough to Tamika.

"Turn left-- right-- left-- take that door!"

The string of commands stopped at the door to the other lab, the sanctuary. Where everyone was supposed to be hiding out, safe and sound. Instead, the door hung slightly open.

Tamika slid to a stop in front of it, and Avery and Megan caught up a moment later. She couldn't whisper to them; her voice came out louder than she could even tell. "There's no short cut here, is there?" she asked.

Avery shook their head, but they felt uncertain now. "I don't... think so?"

Megan reached forward and opened the door, only to be met with an empty room. But no obvious signs of violence, no indication for why it was empty—she turned to face Avery, and asked them loudly, “Are you sure this is the right room?”

“Sure as anything!” they insisted, shoving into the open door to get a look. There was blood still on the floor, dried and black and inky—Kevin's blood. There was no way this wasn't the right room, with that going for it. And the bed of rags he'd been in, and—still, nobody there.

They frowned, looking back at Tamika and Megan, who still stood in the doorway. “Where the hell did everyone go? There's no shortcut. He couldn't have gotten here—right?” They'd tried to find shortcuts through the building for years, to get to classes faster. If a desperate college kid couldn't figure it out, what chance did Cecil have?

(They worried that it was a better chance, actually.)

“...I don't like this, shit.” Avery made their way out into the hallway again.

“We need to keep moving,” Tamika insisted. “Maybe they already took off running for themselves—I'm starting to think they did.”

The other two followed the line of her gesture, down at the flecks of blood on the floor, much fresher but just subtle enough that they weren't from a fresh wound. Of course. Kevin was still bleeding, he'd make a trail anywhere .

Tamika started tracking after the blood trail, with Avery and Megan once again trailing behind. They kept up a faster pace, but not the full-out sprint of before, because the tracking was a little more delicate to keep track of than simply turning left or right.

Avery felt a sense of too much familiarity as they continued, and knew before they had any proof just exactly where everyone had gone:

To spread the news.

To evacuate the building.

To the recording booth .

The voice that came over the PA system when it crackled to life wasn't Kevin's, but instead with a shaky sort of stage fright, Carlos cleared his throat and spoke.

[Excuse—excuse me. Everyone needs to evacuate. This is serious? If um—if you see anyone covered in blood? Just run. I don't... we don't know what's going on, but run.]

Avery took off ahead of the girls, calling back, “Come on. I know where they are.”

They both followed quickly, and hoped that Cecil wouldn't know the same.

Carlos continued:

[We'll all meet by the um—what's that?]

Kevin muttered something in the background.

[Okay. Find anyone—any masked army people. And follow them back. We're retreating to their camp. Protect yourselves. Don't worry about anyone else. We'll all get out, okay?]

Avery caught sight of the group first, huddled in and around the recording booth. Some part of them wanted to say something, the door was open, that wasn't proper at all—no, that didn't matter right now. Radio host etiquette was second to staying safe.

[Oh, and, Cecil? If you're... if you're still out there? We're gonna help you. I promise.]

Carlos set the microphone down, and Kevin turned it off, and for a few moments neither of them connected with the rest of the room at all. Seated side-by-side, Kevin leaned against him heavily, and he didn't attempt to shake him off.

Tamika ran into the middle of everything, squeezing her way past Dana and Dr. Kayali and into the room before she spoke. “Guys, I know you already know he's escaped, but I think this might be beyond the point of helping.”

Roger hissed something to her to quiet down, but she hardly heard his quieter voice.

“Beyond helping?” Dana asked, “What makes you say that?”

“When we—ah, sorry.” Tamika took a moment to consciously readjust her volume. Wasn't loud enough to hear herself, but she had to trust her words were coming out alright, like they always had. “We weren't speaking to Cecil back there. I'm fairly sure we were talking to the Smiling God.”

Avery and Megan agreed, and this was met by heavy silence.

“What does that mean, then?” Dr. Kayali asked.

“I don't know,” Tamika admitted.

It was Kevin who spoke up to finally dispel the tension in the air. “You could've talked to the Smiling God through me plenty of times,” he insisted. “And I'm still here, I'm still me.”

The group seemed to collectively hesitate, unsure whether that was any kind of blessing—but, no. There wasn't such time for judgments like that. Dr. Kayali took up head of the group once again, but only for a long enough moment to give it over anew.

“Alright, well, you know more about what's going on than any of us, Kevin. And we're running out of options. What the hell are we supposed to do next?” she asked.

Kevin hesitated, his face turned up toward Carlos as if to look to him for advice, support, something. Carlos took his hands. That was all he could give. It was enough.

“...alright. This is going to be pretty unorthodox but—I lost my bloodstones. Has anyone else here got theirs? I'm afraid I'm going to have to use them.”

Four sets of hands went fishing through their pockets as everyone who'd come from the old Night Vale tried to pull out their own set of bloodstones. Unorthodox, definitely. But there wasn't a soul who'd refuse in a moment of desperation.

Roger pulled his set out fastest, and tossed the pouch into Kevin's lap.

“Don't do anything to piss them off,” he insisted.

Kevin could do nothing but force out a laugh, nervous and still trying to fake that smile he'd always worn. As if it would really make him less nervous, after all.

“Oh, I'm going to piss a lot of things off. Sorry.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, sorry it's been about a month since my last chapter. also, sorry if you got two notifications? I accidentally posted this before I was done fixing it up, before. but... here it is now.


	46. Ritual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin begins a ritual, following a plan that only he is sure of. The others, meanwhile, are forced to wait and wonder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no warnings but I so can't promise that for long. hahah.

Kevin couldn't see Roger's bloodstones as he spilled them out of their pouch, but the energy they gave off bristled at his touch, unwelcoming. He traced his fingers over the carved runes to tell them apart, and slid delicately onto the floor of the broadcasting booth to begin laying out a circle.

Roger stepped forward and laid his knife on the floor within Kevin’s reach, pointing it out to him. It wasn’t as fancy as Cecil’s knife had been, but clearly devoted to the ritual. If his bloodstones were being used, the whole set might as well go together.

“Thanks,” Kevin muttered. “You’re a good kid.”

He nodded, saying nothing, and edged back out of the broadcasting booth, not interested in seeing what was going to be done with the bloodstones he’d taken such care of, the stones that he’d bonded to, performed all his scout rituals with.

Carlos didn't move from his seat, but stared. Cecil had laid out his stones with exacting precision, had explained to Carlos that it was necessary to do everything right. Kevin scattered them in a rough shape that, if he squinted, looked pretty much like a circle.

That didn't seem like a good idea.

“Uh. Kevin... are.... don't you need to... are you doing that right?” he dared to ask, because nobody else was going to.

Kevin didn't hesitate. “Right enough. Get out of this room.”

“Why, what's going to happen?” he asked.

Fingers still nudging stones into place, Kevin paused a moment and sighed before he answered, “Scientists. You always have to know what's going on, don't you? Is everything questions with you?”

Carlos took that to mean the same thing it always meant with Cecil: the question wasn't going to be answered. He rose to his feet, stepping carefully around the parts of the circle that Kevin had already laid out, hoping not to disrupt him. Kevin grabbed his leg as he passed by, and a brief impulse told Carlos to kick him—but he resisted and pulled his leg away gently.

“...I don't know what's going to happen, Carlos,” he added quietly. “Maybe we're all going to die. Maybe it's just me. Maybe Roger's bloodstones won't even work for me and Cecil will get here first.” Kevin cracked a smile, so forced and unnatural that Carlos knew better than to point it out. “Don't ask questions. It's way better not knowing—there are a whole lot of things I wish I never knew. That's all.”

“...Come on, Carlos,” Dr. Kayali murmured, pushing the door to the broadcast booth open further, to invite him out. She didn't try to ask any questions of her own. Maybe there was something to not knowing, after all.

He sighed and nodded in her direction, and then looked down at Kevin. “I don't think we're going to all die,” he said finally. “You'll get it right, whatever you're doing, and we'll all get out of here fine. And... I'll help you make new eyes. And um. A new heart. Sorry, again.”

Kevin shook his head. “Don't be sentimental, it's a waste of valuable time.” He forced his smile and shooed Carlos from the room for real this time. Dr. Kayali closed the door.

Outside, the others stayed clustered together; Megan and Tamika had shoved a bookcase in front of the door and hoped it would keep Cecil out. All the same, nobody wanted to be near the door, just in case it slammed open. Everyone split into two groups; the cluster who’d come from old Night Vale stayed huddled away from both the door to the hallway and to the broadcasting booth.

“What’s he even doing in there?” Tamika asked incredulously, “He didn't have his own bloodstones, does he even know how to use them?”

Roger sighed. “I don’t know, I hope he doesn’t wreck them.”

“I think we have to hope that he knows something that we don’t,” Dana added. “I’m sure you can get new bloodstones if he does something to yours, Roger. It’s… not usually how that works, but I’m sure that some exception could be made, through the right channels.”

He shuddered. “Don’t. I don’t want to go through another bonding, anyway. Maybe just leave Night Vale if we get out of this shit alive.”

Megan snorted. “You’re very optimistic about this, Roger.”

“I’m tired of all the crazy stuff all the time anyway.”

On the other side of the room, the scientists clustered and stood there mostly in silence. Dr. Kayali was the one to finally speak up, looking down at Avery as she did so. “I’m sorry this turned out this way. You deserved better.”

They glanced up at her. “What?”

“I’m sorry that you got so wrapped up in this,” she answered. “I shouldn’t have allowed students to be directly involved, you could have fled with the others instead of staying here with us.”

Avery quirked an eyebrow. “And run out into the desert? I’m fine.”

“Still,” she muttered.

“I'm not a child. I know it's not your fault what happened, so you don't have to apologize,” they insisted. “We've all been screwed by the same shit.”

“Amen to that,” Theo agreed.

The group fell into silence again. Carlos kept glancing back toward the door to the broadcasting booth, waiting to see if some symbol was about to appear, or some fog slide out from underneath the door, or some physical indication that Kevin was doing something and it was working.

But it was just a door, and nothing happened.

“I think it’s my fault,” Carlos said at length. “Maybe if I didn’t stay with Cecil and he went and left, and then this would’ve happened in some other town…”

Nobody contested his explanation. Eventually Avery added, “I thought I should have killed him when I had the chance but I don’t think I even could have.”

“It’s hardly anyone’s fault,” Theo said.

Then Carlos asked, “Where’s Dave?”

Dr. Kayali’s brows furrowed. She looked around the room, but of course he wasn’t there; he hadn’t been there this entire time, but he’d vanished a while ago. After Kevin had switched sides. “I don’t know. Maybe he fled with everyone else,” she suggested.

“Oh. Well, I hope he gets out alright,” Carlos replied flatly.

“He can write our eulogies,” Dr. Kayali intoned. At the surprise on the others' faces, she corrected her remark, “I'm kidding. I don't know where he went though. He's been basically useless this entire time.” She sighed.

Avery nodded. “Can't handle the crazy shit I guess. I can feel that. Don't have much of an option.” They reached up to cup their hand over their robotic eye, shielding it from the light for a moment while they opened it. Despite how broken it was, it hadn't stopped working yet.

“Can hardly blame Dave for—” Carlos began, only to be interrupted.

Waving their hand in his face, Avery hissed, “Wait. Something weird is happening.” They lowered their hand from their eye and visibly winced at the change in the light, but kept it open anyway, looking toward the door of the broadcasting booth a little slack-jawed. “Shit.”

The others all looked over. Carlos asked first, “Is there something that I'm not seeing that you're all seeing? Because I mean, my glasses are gone and maybe...” he trailed off.

Dr. Kayali was shaking her head. “Nothing I'm seeing. Avery, what's going on?” She looked over at them. “Is... do you see something?”

They nodded, still staring in silent wonder at the door. Like they were looking through it, a pale luminous sort of spot moved around behind the door. They cast their gaze around the room to check the others, half expecting it was some kind of heat signature, but it wasn't. The aura of light selected some of them, but not others; the group who had come from old Night Vale lit up like a pack of glowing spirits.

“...I don't... it's not. I don't know what I'm seeing. It's Kevin's eye,” they explained haltingly, looking toward their professors. “...Not everyone's... ...but, Dr. C...?”

Carlos frowned. “What? Is something going on?”

“You're glowing. Almost everyone in here is glowing. But you two—” they gestured to Theo and Dr. Kayali “—aren't glowing. But everyone else is.”

Dr. Kayali looked around the room, half expecting to see somebody lit up, but nobody was. Everything still looked the same. “Glowing? I wonder what that thing is set up to see that we're not seeing. You said Carlos was glowing?” She looked over at him. He looked just fine to her.

Avery nodded. “He's glowing. Tamika and Megan and the others, they're glowing. And I can sort of see where Kevin is through the door. And...” they paused, and looked down at their own hands. “I'm glowing. I mean, I don't know what it's doing.”

“I wish I understood robotics, I dissected the other eye but it didn't make any sense to me,” Carlos murmured. “Maybe that would've told me what it meant.”

“I'd say we ask Kevin,” Avery suggested.

Carlos shook his head. “Not right now. I don't know what he's doing, but you should never interrupt somebody who's doing bloodstone work. Cecil taught me that.”

Theo laughed darkly, “Did he happen to teach you what to do if he turned into a serial killer?”

“I don't think either of us imagined it happening,” Carlos retorted, “It wouldn't have if Kevin hadn't been killed. Then the Smiling God would have stayed with him.”

“Then he'd still be trying to kill us,” Avery pointed out. “There's no solution, is there, unless they're both dead—do you think it would just go to somebody else?”

Dr. Kayali replied, “I would expect it to, but I don't know. We could give it a try.”

“Kill them?” Carlos asked in disbelief. “We're no better than them are we?”

“They won't stay dead,” she explained. “Maybe if that parasite goes away, then they'll wake back up and everything will be fine. The only alternative is one or the other stays dangerous.”

Avery snorted. “I think they're both dangerous anyway. Don't tell me you're on their side now.”

She looked over at the door to the broadcasting booth. “...I won't say I'm on their side. But I'll admit that I'm not... entirely against Kevin if he's trying to help us out. Cecil, that waits to be seen.”

“Never thought I'd hear that,” Avery remarked.

Carlos interjected, “Cecil isn't against us. It's that Smiling God that's got him under its control. He wouldn't hurt us. He's... I know it's not him in control, because he wouldn't try to hurt me.”

“Isn't that just splitting hairs at this point?” Theo asked. “Whether Cecil himself would hurt us—which I'm not sure I believe—it's not like it's Cecil himself we're dealing with anyway. Would you have sided with Kevin if he was trying to kill you?”

He lapsed into silence.

“That's what I thought,” Theo grumbled.

On the other end of the room, Megan traced patterns onto the floor with the fingers that used to be most of her body. This was boring. As much as she didn't want anything to happen, waiting for something horrible to occur had sort of lost its luster. Now it was just dragging on too long.

“Where are you going if we get out of this?” she asked Roger. “Since you're leaving.”

He shrugged. “No idea. Always figured maybe I'd visit Luftnarp someday.”

Tamika rolled her eyes. “Big traveler here. Well, if you do go visit Luftnarp, send me a postcard.”

“Does your father know any of this?” Dana asked. “I think you at least owe it to him to let him know where you're going so he can keep in touch.”

Roger just sighed, he didn't say anything else. Thinking about escape was probably a moot point, anyway. If Kevin had done anything at all with his bloodstones, he hadn't even felt it. Probably, he'd had no idea what he was doing. Maybe they'd just turned on him.

“Remember the librarians?” Tamika asked the others at length. “That was so much simpler. I wish we could be up against librarians, all you need to know is how to outwit them long enough to decapitate them. There isn't any guesswork or remorse.”

“The librarians?” Roger laughed. “You weren't in Scouts with me. Sure. You saw plenty of them in the library but did you ever see them in the wild?”

Tamika's eyes lit up. “You saw wild librarians? What were they like? I've heard they grow even bigger when they aren't constrained to a small space. Were there any fatalities?” Megan, in the background, giggled at her sudden enthusiasm. Of course. It was always the librarians.

Roger took the opportunity to draw everyone away from the present, spinning the tale with a grin on his face. “Oh, were there ever fatalities. See, this was after the night's blood rituals, so we were all still pretty far out into the desert. The sun was already down, and we didn't even see the first one crest the hill behind us. I think I was probably still putting away my bloodstones and I heard the first scream—and see, that's the first mistake.”

“Oh, no, you never let them hear you scream,” Tamika agreed with a nod.

“Never,” Roger reiterated once more for effect. “So I looked toward the scream and there it was, the librarian, bigger than I ever saw one, all talons and teeth and big and menacing, like everything I've ever heard over a campfire... before anyone knew what was happening, half the troop was under attack, and the rest of us had to scatter.”

Tamika laughed. “Scatter! In a librarian attack? Are you kidding me?”

“I know. I'm surprised I lived to tell the tale,” he agreed. “It could've gone so much worse than it—whoa. Did you guys just...?” He stopped, mid-sentence, and looked over toward the door to the broadcasting booth. The others followed his line of sight to where a thick smoke was exuding out from under the door, beginning to fill the outer room.

The group of scientists noticed next. Carlos broke free to walk over to the booth and knock at the door, calling in. “Kevin? Is...is this supposed to happen?”

Smoke licked around his ankles and past him, filling the airspace slowly. Kevin gave no answer, and when he tried the doorknob, it burnt his hand. “Ow! Kevin? Kevin?? What's going on in there?” he called. “Please, answer me. What's going on?”

Roger rose to his feet, making his way over next. “You better not have ruined my bloodstones!” he snapped, pounding against the door.

“Don't interrupt his ritual, you don't know what he's in the middle of still,” Dana explained, trying to maintain herself as a voice of reason as everyone else started to grow increasingly more upset. Most of them had sunk to the floor now, to hide from the smoke as it rose toward the ceiling.

Avery snapped back at her, “You're damn right I don't know what he's in the middle of! How do you know he's not fucking with us? Got us all ready to trust anything he'll do, and now he's smoking us out! Hand us right over to his brother or what?”

“That's not true!” Carlos snapped, certain beyond any logic. “He told us that he'd help—he has no reason not to!”

“He's killing us!” Avery shrieked, “He's fucking killing us, does he need a reason?!”

Tamika yelled above the others, “Quiet! We need to keep a level head here—somebody who knows this building better, are there air vents, or something? Some way we can get out of here?”

“Use the door!” Theo suggested.

“The door is already barricaded,” Tamika replied, “If Cecil knows where the room is, he'll find us the moment it opens, and then we're out of luck. I need an alternate exit.”

Carlos hit the floor and Roger knelt quickly next to him. “You're not supposed to breathe the smoke, man, come on what the hell.” He shook Carlos, who didn't stir at the movement. “Come on! You're scientists, you're supposed to know better or something, aren't you?”

“Oh sure, we all just know what to do when shit goes to hell like this!” Avery snapped.

“Avery, you need to calm down,” Dr. Kayali finally ordered. “Everyone, breathe through your shirts if you can. It might help block some of the fumes—somebody help me. I'm going to break down the door and stop...whatever he's doing in there.”

Dr. Kayali made her way toward the door on hands and knees, and Megan and Tamika made their way over to help her. Tamika had her shirt pulled up over her face, and Megan had borrowed Dana's sweatshirt to tie around her own face. Roger was busy dragging Carlos back over by Dana, who was furthest from the cloud of smoke.

“Do either of you girls have experience breaking down doors?” Dr. Kayali asked, hoping that they'd offered to help because they did.

Megan laughed, “Of course.”

“It might be more difficult with the smoke, but I think if we hold our breath we can manage,” Tamika replied. “You'll need to help with this too. We stand up, and on three, we'll all ram the door. It shouldn't take too many tries. Especially with Megan on our side.” She smiled fondly at the other girl, but the expression was lost underneath her shirt-mask.

Dr. Kayali nodded. “Alright. If it'll work. Let's do it.”

The three of them stood, and Tamika tapped the count of three against her pantleg before they all threw their weight against the door. As she'd said, Megan did much of the heavy lifting; it only took a few tries before the door came loose and swung open into the room, hung still on one hinge only.

The smoke that billowed out after was thicker and blacker than before. Tamika ducked, tugging the other two down with her, and tried to crawl into the room, but there wasn't anywhere to escape it any longer. They had to retreat away from the broadcasting booth and into the rapidly filling room.

“Guys, guys, we need to open the damn door,” Roger insisted, “We'll all suffocate—what the hell's the point of escaping Cecil if we're all dead anyway?” He was practically face to the floor by now.

“Open the door,” Theo agreed, trying to make their way over toward freedom, hoping that freedom was going to come.

Tamika conceded, coughing. “Fine. Push the barricades away—”

But Avery interrupted, “Oh, no, no, no no no no no, don't do it—he's out there.” They coughed, covering their face with their sleeve, and spoke again, muffled, “He's out there.”

The pounding on the door came only moments later, announcing Cecil's arrival for sure.

Still, the room filled with thick, black smog.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long to happen! I've been absolutely swamped with work. good news: my semester ends pretty early in december. so if not before then, there will at least be more updates in december to look forward to.
> 
> hope you guys enjoy! c: I love the wonderful messages I've been getting. <3


	47. The Switch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A whole lot of things go wrong, including but not limited to: Kevin's bloodstone ritual, the barricade that was supposed to keep Cecil out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for blood, if anyone wants a synopsis let me know and i'll write one.

                Not every figure was visible in the smoke, but Avery kept both eyes open and tried to navigate toward the others, belly on the floor. The shimmering auras that accompanied most of them were a godsend in the smog, but functionally useless for the pair who didn't have them. They didn't dare call to Dr. Kayali to try and locate her, but kept their face hidden from the smoke as well as they could, and ventured toward the broadcasting room, instead.

                The glow that signaled Kevin's presence was still there. If they could make him stop the smoke, they'd do anything to try.

                If they couldn't, at the very least they'd kill his sorry ass before the smoke killed all of them.

                Avery kept having to pause to try and catch their breath, overpowered by a stench like incense and burnt hair that wafted everywhere now. It felt like hours passed crawling across the floor, only it couldn't have been very long, gauging by the sound of Cecil's demands for the door to be opened. Then they planted their hand down firmly in a puddle of thick, warm blood on the floor of the broadcasting booth, and realized why Kevin's shimmer didn't move around the room like anyone else.

                “Wh-what the fuck?” They coughed into their sleeve and moved to Kevin's side, ignoring the simplest rule of bloodstone rituals in the process: don't break the circle.

                The moment Avery's knee knocked one stone out of place, the whole world shifted just a bit to the left with a sickening jerk.

                Dr. Kayali tipped her ear toward the sound of Avery’s voice breaking through the smog, sputtering on the smoke. They were the only one talking, everyone else was busy covering their mouths to keep from breathing too much in.

                “What the fuck did you do?” they hissed, low and quiet. “That wasn’t supposed to—you—you—what’s all this—oh, fuck.”

                Their small silhouette was barely visible through dense smoke. Avery reeled to face the other room, swaying in the cloud as if dizzy. They spun back to face Kevin, sprawled out on the floor. Avery spoke then, angry, “This wasn’t part of the agreement.”

                Dr. Kayali was quite sure it didn’t sound like Avery was talking anymore, even if the voice hadn’t changed, the inflection was all wrong.

                “This wasn’t part of the agreement. I made a sacrifice to you. You don’t just get to take what I’m willing to give, and turn on everyone else when you’re done.” They were coughing, but kept talking.  “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

                Dr. Kayali called out to them, “Avery...?”

                They spun to face her again, and through the smog she could see strange symbols trace their way down Avery’s face, radiating out from the space where a third eye might be. Like shimmering gold, the patterns traced across their dark skin and vanished only where their clothing began.

She was quite sure it wasn’t Avery, but they spoke to her for a moment, “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t—” she began, only to be interrupted by the sound of cracking wood as Cecil finally broke the lock, and the door swung open into the bookcase that the others had backed in front of it.

Then: “Well you’ve done quite a number on yourselves in here, haven’t you?” Cecil chuckled. The smoke began to seep out through the crack of the door, a development met with no small amount of mixed feelings—Cecil’s arrival was a death sentence, but so was the smog.

The figure that wasn’t quite Avery hissed through gritted teeth, “Stay down.” A hand gesture accompanied, and Dr. Kayali wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t question it—just listened.

“Is anybody still alive in here?” Cecil called in, his tone of voice sounding sickly sweet. “My. It’s gotten so dark, you know, I might think you all need a little light.”

“Stay down, stay down, stay down,” it was turning into a quiet chant, in the hopes that somebody else might hear aside from Dr. Kayali.

Cecil’s silhouette was barely visible through the smog, as he tried to push the door open. Dana shoved back against the bookcase, and Roger weakly tried to help, but most everyone was in a haze or else passed out entirely and sprawled out on the floor. Once he’d gotten the first couple of tentacles through, it was too late to get him back out.

The room began to clear of the fog as Cecil forced his way in. He reached up then, with bloody hands, and pulled the wrappings from around his head, to expose his third eye again. Coagulated black blood pulled away from his skin with the bandaging; he didn’t flinch at the feeling.

“Get down—get down!” Avery’s voice called out over the smog.

Cecil pried his third eye open, and with it came that foul, burning light. It shone through the smog—no, it cut through the smog like a knife. Within moments the room began to clear as the bright light dissolved any traces of smoke, brought the room to light.

Dr. Kayali stayed down, arms over her head. She wasn’t the only one—of those still awake, most everyone did. Blood streamed down Cecil’s face from his third eye, but he held it open. Held it open until the heat from the light could have blistered skin and burned hair. He had to force his eyelid shut.

Cecil’s other eyes drifted down toward the prone figures on the floor. He approached the nearest, crouching next to Dana with a smile on his face. “Oh, Dana Cardinal. I’ve missed talking to you.”

She kept her eyes clamped shut but answered him, “Cecil, you—you need help. We’re going to—”

“No. Don’t tell me. You’ll spoil the surprise,” Cecil cooed, and reached out to try and pry her eyes open, but this only lasted for a moment before he noticed Carlos on the ground, not terribly far away. Sprawled out, apparently unconscious, and utterly helpless.

He pulled away from Dana, disinterested, and made his way over to Carlos. “My scientist. Carlos. What have they done to you?” he asked, tentacles reaching out to smooth back Carlos’ hair. “Poisoned you. They’ve _poisoned_ you.”

                “Get away from him!” Dr. Kayali snapped, turning defensively to face him.

                Cecil snapped his gaze up to meet hers, two glazed over eyes and the bright glow of the Smiling God beaming forth from the third. Avery tackled her into the carpet a moment later and she hit the floor, blinking the light from her eyes.

                “I told you not to look,” they hissed through gritted teeth, gripping her arms tight enough to hurt. “You will become like your coworker—that’s how that works—the Smiling God gets in your head and it—”

                “My, you don’t sound quite the same, little intern,” Cecil remarked with a smile. “I don’t suppose you’d have any explanation, would you?” He was staring straight over at the both of them, with the sort of look in his eyes that said he knew, and Kevin hoped nobody else was looking at him to know.

                He winced at Cecil’s stare and looked away, still unused to seeing anything with functioning eyes. Avery’s body had that much going for it, but it was small, it was mortal, and he knew it wasn’t going to last for very long in any kind of fight. He answered, voice quiet, “I—I overheard… Kevin…say it?”

                “I don’t think so,” Cecil replied cheerfully. “Well, you really think you’re going to pull one over on me, don’t you, Kevin? Is this another one of your silly bloodstone tricks?” He waved his hand around the room, at the gathered group all still half-comatose on the floor or hiding their eyes.

                “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied in Avery’s voice.

                Cecil scoffed. “So deceitful. You know, I can tell it’s you, because the Smiling God still recognizes you. Just think about it, Kevin. You miss it too, don’t you?”

                He shook his head and went to answer, but Dr. Kayali finally threw him off. He started to warn her, told her to stay down, but the look on her face told him everything: it was too late for that.

                “I’m quite sure he does,” she replied, looking down at him. Kevin wasn’t sure if she was seeing him or Avery down there—no, she’d called him male. She knew exactly what Cecil had said.

                Kevin scrambled to get away then, “Cecil, we need to get that thing out of you—you’re right. I miss it. Give it back to me.” The room had cleared of smoke, he could see his own body sprawled out in the broadcasting booth in the coagulating puddle he’d bled out in sacrifice.

                (Avery was in there—that tugged at the back of his mind. He hadn’t even liked being in there—some kid didn’t deserve that at all.)

“Why, if you missed the Smiling God, all you had to do was ask. Come here, Kevin, I’ll reintroduce you both,” Cecil replied warmly, holding his hands out to Kevin.

Ignored, Carlos stirred on the floor, and kept from moving once he realized that the figure crouched only inches away from him was Cecil. He could see the edge of a bright light; he clamped his eyes shut immediately and hoped it would pass.

Kevin scooted toward his body in the bloodstone circle, still talking animatedly as he went. “Do you think that he’ll take me back, Cecil? I do so want to impress, I would have to be sure that I wouldn’t let down the Smiling God.” He forced out a laugh, it sounded even more unnatural in a stranger’s voice.

“He will take you as you are, Kevin,” Cecil replied. “Watch, I can show you—he’ll take _everyone_ as they are. The Smiling God only wants your faith and eternal devotion.”

When he reached down to lay a hand on Dana’s shoulder, she edged away, eyes still clamped shut. “Cecil, please don’t do this,” she muttered, quiet. “Please don’t.”

Cecil grabbed her shoulders and pinned her against the bookcase. “Dana, I know you’ve had such a rough time being mayor. So many responsibilities! Don’t you want to just feel happy?”

Kevin abandoned his current quest; his body would have to wait. “Cecil, leave her alone. I—I don’t want to _share_ the Smiling God anymore, you see?” He couldn’t even make it sound convincing.

“Surely you of all people should know the great bounty of joy that the Smiling God gives us, Kevin,” he answered. “Why wouldn’t you want to share such happiness? Are you selfish?”

“She hasn’t earned it,” was the first thing that came out of his mouth.

Cecil paused. “Earned it?” he asked. “Do you suppose that we stop being benevolent? Make them earn the kindness of the Smiling God? I like that business model. It sounds… productive.”

He nodded frantically, “Yes. It’s wasteful of our time to give anything to anyone who hasn’t earned it. You’re wasting the Smiling God’s energy on people who may not even be grateful.” Kevin heard the words pouring out of his mouth almost faster than he could think them up. “We need to work together—with the two of us, we can establish a business plan that will really amp up the profits. Make people work for the Smiling God’s light. Make people beg for his benevolence.”

“That’s positively devious, Kevin. I don’t think I like your tone at all,” Cecil replied, still chipper.

He turned back to Dana, hands on her face. “I don’t think that his business plan is sustainable, wouldn’t you agree?” he asked. “We need to treat people with kindness.”

Dana knew she was as good as fucked, so she retorted, “Why the hell does that parasite make you idiots spout business models all day?”

“That was incredibly impolite, Dana,” he hissed, warning in his voice. “I think you might see things differently with a little education.”

Cecil pried her eyes open, and she gazed straight into the light.

“Leave her alone!” Tamika cried, and Cecil looked up just fast enough for the book to hit his face. She was grabbing another off the shelf to take another shot. “I’ve had enough of this Smiling God polluting everyone’s minds! You need to let use help you!”

Megan clamped her hands over Tamika’s eyes as Cecil spun to face them both. “Cecil, don’t do this, we’re your friends,” she pleaded.

Almost nobody noticed Avery’s voice chanting Kevin’s ritual words over the bloodstone circle. Roger tried to slip away to see what was going on, and Dr. Kayali intercepted him.

“Do you think you want to leave so quickly? Just wait. You’ll have your turn in due—”

He shoved her away. “Get bent, professor.”

Dr. Kayali grabbed him, twisting his arms behind his back, and threatened, “If you attack me again, I’m going to have to start working on you _before_ he has a chance to help.”

“Oh spare me,” Roger grumbled, squirming to escape. Theo grabbed her from behind and pulled her away, pinning her against the floor.

“See if you can help someone,” they insisted, “I’m going to keep her safe.”

Roger nodded and slipped into the broadcasting booth.

                Carlos spotted him move away, but couldn’t see clearly enough to know who’d just left. Kevin wasn’t near, he knew Cecil was still right by him, and someone had hit him with a book the moment before, after it bounced off of Cecil and landed on him instead. He began to scoot away.

                “I don’t understand why you would deny this gift I’m offering you—I suppose you must be ignorant. Oh, to have never told you all to fear the light.” Cecil sighed and shook his head. “I’ve been filling your heads with some awful things all these years, haven’t I?”

                Dana agreed, “You had me quite convinced.” She advanced on Megan and Tamika, who tried to stumble away, guided by Megan’s sight alone—she’d screwed up early, but found it didn’t make a difference. Cecil couldn’t bother her through eyes that weren’t her own, and the hand she’d always been had no eyes to watch him with. Was it safer to be immune?

                “Dana, you’re not thinking clearly,” Tamika insisted. “Neither of you are. We can sort this all out, I’m quite sure we can—you just need to not act quickly. Don’t do something you’ll—”

                “Oh, I won’t regret it,” Dana insisted, predicting the end of her sentence. She grabbed Megan’s hand—really, all of Megan—and tried to uncover Tamika’s eyes. Tamika shoved back and tried to kick her in the chest, successfully knocking her back enough to throw Cecil off-balance in the process.

He fell backwards over Carlos, and Carlos yelped—and knew instantly that he’d given himself away. He couldn’t pretend that he was sleeping anymore.

Cecil forgot about the others almost instantly, leaving Dana to try and pry Megan and Tamika away from each other. Instead, he smiled down at Carlos, blood dripping from his third eye and into Carlos’ perfect hair. “You’re awake. Wonderful! I was afraid you were poisoned.”

“N-nope,” he answered, keeping his eyes shut. “I’m not—can you please get off of me? This s-sort of hurts.” Carlos wasn’t going to try to ignore him. He knew better than that.

“Well, since you’ve asked so politely.” Cecil moved off of him, then took hold of him to sit him upright. “Aren’t you going to look at me, Carlos? I’ve missed you.” He stroked the scientist’s cheek. “I’ve missed you so terribly.”

Carlos tried not to let his voice shake, “I miss you too, Cecil.”

He laughed. “You don’t have to miss me anymore, I’m right here. Just open your eyes.”

“I miss the way things were before,” Carlos corrected, and kept his eyes shut.

“Things can be wonderful again, Carlos,” he reassured. “I want them to be. The two of us, together—that’s wonderful, isn’t it? Please, look at me. I want to know you’re sincere.”

Carlos shook his head and muttered, “I know you’re not. So I’m not going to.”

The statement hit Cecil all wrong. “What? You don’t think I’m being sincere with you, Carlos? What the hell do you think I am, if not sincere? I _love_ you, Carlos. I have loved you since—since the moment that we first met! What, do you think some—some silly little—some Smiling God is going to change that?” His voice broke from the pleasant tones he’d been keeping.

Still in his grip, Carlos shuddered. “I didn’t say that,” he insisted, “I didn’t say you’re not sincere, but that parasite has a hold of your mind and I know that you’ll regret if you do something while you aren’t able to—”

Cecil interrupted him, “I’ll tell you about parasites! Your doubt is a parasite! You think I would really turn against you—I would never, I would never hurt you, Carlos.” His grip tightened, Carlos felt tentacles sliding around his waist to hold him still. “Look at me. Carlos. Look at me.”

He shook his head, keeping his eyes squeezed shut, and said nothing.

“Carlos, look at me,” Cecil demanded. “I love you. I love you—don’t you believe me?” He began trying to pry Carlos’ eyes open.

Behind him, Dana was subdued, held in Megan’s grip so she could neither call out nor try to pull herself free. Tamika broke from the cluster and crept toward the broadcasting booth, nudging Roger where he sat by the door. “What’s going on?” she whispered.

Avery knelt doubled over by the wall, blood dripping down from their mouth and nose. They kept heaving. Roger didn’t touch them, but stayed close enough in case they needed him.

“They switched back,” he muttered, watching Kevin shakily do his work in the bloodstone circle. Even bled out all over the floor, he still had the means to move himself. Any question that he or Cecil had ever been mortal was washed away with that act alone.

“Alright, they switched back, but what?” Tamika asked, glancing back toward the other room. The pair that Cecil had brainwashed were pinned, kept out of trouble—and he was distracted entirely by Carlos, who he grew increasingly more forceful with by the second.

There wasn’t much time before Carlos didn’t serve as much of a distraction anymore.

“I don’t know. He said he’s… doing something,” Roger muttered, unsure.

Avery replied, voice shaky, “He’s—taking it—back.” They sputtered for a moment, still nauseous and in pain after the switch. The gold markings on their body hadn’t left, and still shone like strange tattoos on any bit of exposed skin.

Tamika peered in at Kevin’s solemn work and asked, “What, the Smiling God? What happens when he’s possessed again? Then we’re right back where we started.”

Roger nodded grimly. “I guess we figure it out from there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shit's going down. let's see where this takes us. strangely i haven't been feeling/doing the gore bit recently. give it time.
> 
>  
> 
> as always, comments and kudos are loved <3


	48. The Sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin completes a ritual, and blood is spilled on both sides of the conflict.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here come the warnings:  
> blood, gore, plenty of violence
> 
> synopsis at the end.

“Cecil, stop, you’re hurting me.”

Carlos tried to raise his hands to guard his face, but found his wrists held down by tentacles. Cecil had enough extra limbs to keep him from doing just about anything—he knew there was little point in trying to resist. So he tried to appeal, and hope Cecil heard him.

“Just look at me, Carlos. Look at me, and I won’t have to hurt you,” he cooed.

“You don’t have to hurt me now! Nobody’s making you,” Carlos objected.

He laughed and traced his fingers down Carlos’ cheek, bloody where he’d been digging his nails in—trying to provoke him to open his eyes, though it wasn’t working. “I don’t know why you’re being so uncooperative, Carlos. Look, your friends have already…” he trailed off, looking out over the room.

Now a few feet away and trying to move further, Megan had Dana pinned and gagged with her own sweatshirt in her mouth. Dana was barely struggling anymore, trying to catch her breath again for another round. A little further off, Theo had just sat on Dr. Kayali and ignored her complaints.

The others were missing, vanished into the broadcasting booth.

“Carlos, where are your friends?” Cecil demanded, looking back at him. “They’re planning something, aren’t they? Tell me what they’re planning.”

He shook his head and said nothing.

Cecil raised his voice, “Tell me what they’re planning. Now.”

“You’ll have to force me,” Carlos replied, quiet and afraid.

At that, Cecil finally gave up on convincing him, and instead pried his eyes open to force him to stare at the light of the Smiling God. What Carlos saw first was his boyfriend’s bloodied face, contorted in an expression of anger and hurt, and then the light came flooding in.

And it was beautiful enough that nothing else mattered.

Tamika had moved over to Avery’s side to check on them. “You holding up okay? You look like you’ve had it worse than most of us.” She reached out at first to lay a hand on their shoulder, then thought better of it and pulled away, unsure if they would even want that.

Avery sighed and sunk against the wall, in a space that wasn’t dirtied by blood or vomit. “Not okay… just. Fix this…all. We get out. Then it’s okay.” They peered up at her with both eyes open, their robotic eye tracking in the wrong direction, away from her face.

“I think we’re going to get out,” she tried to reassure, though she wasn’t sure herself.

Kevin had gone silent in his ritual, hunched over the bloodstones, maybe taking a breather, maybe stopping, maybe doing something important to the ritual. Nobody interrupted him. Roger turned over his knife in his hand and waited for what happened next.

They’d spoken, briefly. Kevin’s words hung like an ill omen over his head.

(“Do anything necessary to make this work. Anything.”)

Avery and Tamika spoke with one another in low, murmured tones. It sounded like they were discussing their fate. Avery looked half dead already, and wasn’t trying to sit up anymore.

Then Cecil appeared in the doorway, with Carlos draped at his side like a trophy wife. “Now, what’s going on in here?” he asked. Blood still dripped down from his third eye, but he’d closed it again; perhaps he intended to talk. Or perhaps he didn’t want to give them the mercy of the Smiling God.

Roger hid the knife up his sleeve and replied casually, “He had to switch bodies back with the intern.” He gestured vaguely in Kevin’s direction. The floor was sticky with black blood, and Kevin still wasn’t moving nor did he seem to be breathing. All ritual was in a standstill.

Cecil’s gaze locked on Roger, and he scowled. “Do you think I’m falling for that? Carlos told me everything that you have all been planning. You’re trying to _kill_ me.”

Tamika butted in, “We’re not trying to kill you, Cecil. We only want to help.”

Roger shot her a look, urging her to keep quiet. Carlos caught the look before Cecil noticed it, and leaned up to whisper loudly to him, “They’re very bad liars, sweetheart, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely terrible,” he agreed with a nod, and leaned down to kiss Carlos’ forehead. “Do you see now why it was silly trying to stay on their side? They’re not even good at deceiving me.” He shook his head in disappointment. Carlos giggled and agreed.

After a moment, he released Carlos. “Now, stay here a moment. I don’t want you interfering with Kevin’s bloodstone circle, alright? You might get hurt.” He made his way into the room, leaving Carlos standing in the doorway.

Roger edged in front of him, but not very far. “Cecil. Don’t. I don’t know what’ll happen if you step in there but—it won’t be pretty.”

He shoved Roger back. “Don’t bother. You couldn’t even stop me if you tried! You’re just as spineless as your father ever was.”

Avery’s voice broke into the conflict, “What. Did you do. To Dr. C?”

Tamika tried to pull them back to the ground but they forced their way to their feet, as if they had any intention of confronting Cecil. Roger was shaking his head at them, pointing for them to sit back down, but Avery refused.

Carlos answered for himself, “He didn’t do anything to me, Avery. He showed me the light—and, oh, it was wonderful. I don’t think I ever understood before, what I was missing.”

“Don’t,” they hissed in warning. “He brainwashed you. That’s all the Smiling God does. Just… just like Kevin did to Rachelle. Just… just like he wanted. To do to me.”

He shook his head. “Avery, you don’t understand. Just give him the chance, he can show you—”

“You’re gonna die, Dr. C,” they interrupted. “You’re my friend—he’s fucking with you. He’ll kill you.” Avery’s voice shook, clearly upset, perhaps also just weak.

Cecil laughed, “I would never hurt Carlos, we’re in love.”

“I bet you love the Smiling God better,” they snapped.

He waved a hand dismissively, “Don’t bother talking, sit back down. You hated Kevin, didn’t you? Then I think as the enemy of my enemy, that makes you my friend.” Cecil smiled. “We’re really on the same side here, dear intern.”

Avery swayed in place for a moment, and when it seemed they had nothing else to say, Cecil moved in to break the bloodstone circle. Tamika tried to sit Avery back down, warning that they had no business fighting right now—leave it to the people who still had strength to fight.

Instead, while they promised to sit down, they actually tugged free of her grip with the last of their strength and made a running lunge at Cecil, knocking him off-balance, past the bloodstone circle and against the radio equipment. “You all fucking ruined my life!”

They grabbed the microphone, trying to bash his head with it. “You’re monsters! Fucking monsters!” they howled.

Tamika got up, “Avery! What the fuck are you doing?!”

Cecil threw them against the floor and pinned them, scowling down at the intern. “How dare you. I thought we were on the same side,” he hissed.

Avery spit in his face, and Cecil tore their heart out. His tentacles wrapped up around their limbs to tear them piece from piece, and then a speaker hit his back.

“Get your filthy fucking hands off them,” Tamika growled, trying to grab another piece of equipment to hit him with. Everyone was as good as dead now—they’d escalated the situation and she wasn’t going down without a fight.

Cecil whipped the microphone at her and she dodged. Carlos had entered the room and grabbed her from behind, “Don’t fight, it’s all going to be—”

She elbowed him in the face, “Don’t fucking talk to me, you brainwashed cretin.”

“Don’t you dare touch my Carlos,” Cecil threatened, rising to his feet, soaked in Avery’s blood and Kevin’s. His tentacles whipped out toward Tamika, grabbing her arms, pulling her away from Carlos effortlessly. She felt them wrap tightly, threatening to crush bone, and felt them start to pull.

“Cecil, Cecil, don’t do this, please, we’re friends!” she pleaded.

He started laughing. And then stopped.

Roger twisted the knife in his back. “I’m sorry.”

His tentacles loosened, dropping Tamika, and he turned to face Roger, wincing as the knife was pulled from his back again. The slow burn of Kevin’s ritual was already working its way into his bloodstream, the knife a perfect conduit to let it in.

He reached out to grab Roger, hissing, “How dare you.”

“Get him into the circle—Tamika—get him into the circle!” Roger cried, brandishing the knife wildly to try and keep Cecil back from him.

Carlos made a frantic rush toward him, “Cecil! You’re hurt!”

Tamika yanked him back, tossed him against the desk far harder than she intended to—but it kept him out of trouble. She ran to take another shot at Cecil, whose movements were slowing, becoming more erratic, less logical. Roger, backed into a corner, clamped his eyes shut and waited for his death, so sure to come.

Instead, Tamika bashed Cecil with the speaker yet again and he sunk to his knees. She almost went for another shot—but that was unnecessary. “Get him in the circle?” she snapped.

“That’s what Kevin said we had to do,” Roger answered quickly, dropping the knife to grab Cecil instead. The two of them dragged him to the circle, and Kevin met their eyes only a moment before he reached over to pull his brother in with him.

The light that followed was blinding. Roger fell back, shielding his eyes; Tamika stumbled and slid on the blood spread all over the floor. They groped blindly, found each other, and held on for dear life, each to the only other one in the room still on the same side.

“Oh, fuck, I miss the librarians,” she muttered into his shoulder.

“We’re okay, we’re okay, we’re okay,” Roger was chanting, hoping it worked like some kind of ritual itself—hoping it might ring true. He cringed at the sound of stone cracking—his bloodstones, his bonded set—the sound felt like a knife in his back.

Tamika shivered, “Fuck, he killed that kid. He brainwashed—fuck, I hope that goes away.”

“I don’t know,” Roger answered, “I don’t know, I don’t know how that works.”

“We’re getting out of this alive,” she insisted.

Roger nodded, “I know.”

When the light died down, neither wanted to be the first to look over, in case some horrible sight awaited. Tamika pried herself free from her friend’s grip and dared to take a peek.

Both brothers lay motionless, Kevin hunched over Cecil’s body, and indeed either or both could have been dead at this point, for how statue-still they sat. Cecil still was bleeding, though Kevin had stopped long ago, and maybe that was the only movement from either of them. Around them, a halo of cracked stones—Roger’s bloodstones, destroyed.

As she stood to make her way over, the whole building seemed to shudder, and she nearly lost her footing again. Roger reached out to help her, and she swatted his hand away. “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” he answered uselessly.

Then, from the other room, Megan’s voice: “Are you guys alright in there? What’s going on?”

“Me and Tamika are alright,” Roger called back. “I don't know about the scientist—he's unconscious.”

“Avery's dead,” Tamika added. “I need you to help in case Kevin or Cecil wakes back up.”

Megan pulled the gag from Dana's mouth. “Are you done being brainwashed?” she asked. “Because I've gotta go help.”

Dana glared at her but said nothing. Megan sighed and dragged her into the broadcasting booth, leaving her by the door. “I've got my eye on you,” she threatened.

Tamika and Roger were pulling Cecil from the broken bloodstone circle, dragging him through the pooling blood, red and black, that coated most of the floor now. Roger carefully stepped around Avery's body, still mostly in-tact though their heart was torn out.

“He's still breathing, so whatever Kevin did didn't kill him,” Tamika explained, nodding toward Cecil's prone form. “He's pretty badly hurt though I think. Roger got off a good hit.”

Roger didn't sound proud when he said, “That was one of the last merit badges I got, in Scouts.”

Megan nodded, then gestured toward Kevin. “What about him?”

“I don't know,” Tamika answered. “He...wasn't breathing before, I don't think, so I don't know if we can conclude that he's dead because he's not breathing now. We just have to wait with him.”

“Are they safe to be around?” she asked.

Tamika shook her head. “I'd say assume that neither of them are. And we'll get the others tied up as well—Dana and that professor and him.” She pointed at Carlos, where he lay knocked out on the floor. “We play everything by ear. If anyone does anything questionable, we don't want them up and about so they can do more damage.”

Megan nodded and took a hold of Kevin, pulling him from the circle on her own. She had no trouble picking him up, and she asked, “Where are we tying them up?”

“I don't know, find somewhere. Maybe another one of those lab rooms or something,” Tamika replied. Between the two of them, she and Roger could manage to carry Cecil, but that meant nobody was going to be watching Dana or Carlos if they left.

Theo called from the other room, “Guys? I think something weird's going on.”

Tamika groaned. Everything weird was fucking going on.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Synopsis:  
> We begin where we left off, with Cecil threatening Carlos to try and make him look into the light of the Smiling God. Carlos continues to resist, and Cecil tries to make the point that everyone else is behaving, but realizes that Dana and Dr. Kayali have both been subdued, and Tamika, Roger, Kevin, and Avery are all gone, in the broadcasting booth. He turns on Carlos, demanding information about what's been planned, and forces his eyes open to see the light and brainwash him.  
> Meanwhile, inside the booth, Avery and Tamika are discussing how they hope to get out. Avery, fucked up after everything they've dealt with at Kevin's hands, isn't doing too well anymore. Roger stays away from the others with his knife, apparently waiting for something. He seems to be conspiring with Kevin, who is waiting in his bloodstone circle, and has stopped his present ritual.  
> Cecil then enters the room, with Carlos clinging to him, clearly brainwashed. He has his third eye closed, and isn't trying to brainwash anyone else, but demands a confession that they're trying to kill him, having been apparently told by Carlos that this was the case. Tamika denies this, Roger tries to get her to be quiet, and Carlos points out that they're both lying. Cecil reminds him how lucky he is to no longer be on their side, and Carlos reacts with glee at this. Then, Cecil lets go of him, and makes his way over toward Kevin.  
> Roger tries to stop him, and Cecil tells him to get away. Then Avery butts in, yelling at Cecil and demanding to know what he's done to Carlos. Carlos replies that he's seen the light, to which Avery says he's only been brainwashed, and expresses their fear that Carlos is going to die at Cecil's hands like Rachelle did.  
> Cecil denies this, saying that he'd never hurt Carlos; Avery accuses him of loving the Smiling God more than Carlos, and he refuses to acknowledge this, telling Avery to sit back down, and that they're on the same team since they're both against Kevin.  
> Unexpectedly, when he makes his way toward Kevin again, Avery tackles him, managing to knock him off-balance and into the radio equipment. They start beating Cecil with the microphone, while Tamika yells for them to stop--but it's too late, and Cecil throws Avery off and pins them. They spit in his face before he tears out their heart, killing them.  
> Before he has the chance to tear Avery's body apart, Tamika throws a speaker at him, and Carlos pulls her away, trying to calm her down. She elbows him in the face, and Cecil threatens her, turning to attack Tamika instead. He grabs her with his tentacles and prepares to tear her limb from limb while she pleads--and then he stops, suddenly, when Roger stabs him in the back.  
> At this point it becomes clear that what Kevin was waiting for in the ritual was Cecil, and in stabbing him, Roger has somehow triggered the next step. Instead of being able to fight back, like he has in other situations where he's been wounded, Cecil becomes sluggish and uncoordinated. He threatens Roger and tries to attack him, while Roger yells for Tamika to help get him into the bloodstone circle. She throws Carlos off again, and he knocks his head on the radio desk and blacks out. She knocks Cecil out with the speaker, and the two of them drag him into the circle.  
> The room is flooded with blinding light, and Roger and Tamika cling to each other for security, hiding their eyes from the light. Roger's bloodstones crack during the ritual, and the two of them just wait it out, insisting to each other that they're going to get out of this alive.  
> After, when the light dies down, Kevin and Cecil lie unmoving within the bloodstone circle, and possibly dead. The building seems to move, and Megan calls in to them to ask what's going on. Tamika summons her in to help deal with Cecil and Kevin, and she drags a still-brainwashed Dana in and lets her sit moodily by the door.  
> Cecil, still breathing, is clearly alive while Kevin is unknown, as he had stopped breathing a while ago. Tamika, Megan, and Roger discuss how they're going to restrain Kevin and Cecil (and anyone who's brainwashed), when Theo calls from the other room that something weird is going on.
> 
>  
> 
> aaand that's a wrap. whoa. i haven't had to do a synopsis in a while. shit's going down.  
> as always, comments and kudos are loved. <3


	49. Unraveling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something weird is happening, and nobody is quite sure what to make of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for blood, violence, mild dismemberment (how can dismemberment be mild? idk), character death. synopsis to follow.

Megan stepped back out into the other room first, with Kevin still in her arms, limp. Still warm, but maybe dead. She stopped walking, looking around at the walls of the place, that appeared now to be covered in some kind of symbols.

Very quickly, those symbols were growing into cracks.

“Tamika? Roger? You guys might want a look at this,” she called, wishing that Dana was still on their side, too. Any extra sets of familiar eyes would be useful.

The other two dragged Cecil out of the broadcasting booth and stopped to get a look at the room as the drywall began crumbling—no, it was just fading, becoming see-through where the symbols bled out to the rest of the room.

“…I don’t know what the fuck that is,” Tamika admitted, frowning. “But it doesn’t look good.”

Theo grimaced. “I was hoping one of you guys would know. It just… sort of started, and…well you see what it’s doing now.” They were still sitting on top of Dr. Kayali to keep her from moving.

She added her two cents, “You all asked for this. I’d personally welcome it with open arms! The Smiling God isn’t generally merciful, but you’ve been granted—”

“Shut up,” Roger interrupted.

Tamika shook her head, “No, Roger. Wait. You, uh—what was your name again? What’s the Smiling God doing?” She figured it was better to ask someone who knew.

Dr. Kayali smiled, “Why, he’s free now. Isn’t that a blessing? Free to rain his light down on everyone.”

Megan paled. “Oh, no.”

“What?” Theo asked, looking from face to face as each realized in turn what Dr. Kayali had just admitted to. Tamika glanced between Kevin in her friend’s arms, and Cecil sprawled on the floor. Roger just stared at Tamika. Megan stared still at Dr. Kayali.

“The great unraveling,” came a voice from behind. Dana had surfaced from the booth, with Carlos draped against her for support, still looking dazed and unsure of where he was.

Tamika let go of her grip on Cecil’s arm and stomped quickly toward Megan, who stumbled back with surprise at the movement. “This was his plan all along—it had to be! Get us all killed with this stupid Smiling God bullshit. I never wanted to trust him—let me at him!”

She grabbed Kevin’s arm and yanked him roughly from Megan’s grip, so he fell onto the floor in a heap. He gave no response, no indication that he was even alive to feel it. She shoved her hand toward Roger. “Give me that knife.”

“What the hell is going on?” Theo demanded, getting no real response from anyone.

Roger backed away as Tamika yelled for him to produce the knife. “Tamika—Tam—there’s no point! There’s no point, they’re immortal anyway, you can’t keep him dead—”

“I can try,” she snapped, and grabbed Roger, pulling him close enough to stuff her hand into his pocket and grab the knife, stuffed back in its sheath but still caked in blood.

“We need to figure out something else!” Roger cried, gripping her wrist.

Tamika tumbled over him, wrestling to free her hand now. “Give me that—fucking—thing!” she snapped. “Maybe if we kill him it’ll stop!”

Dana watched, remarking quietly to Carlos, “I don’t know why they’re getting all worked up. This is wonderful news, they should celebrate with their last few moments.”

Carlos nodded and tried to blink the light from his eyes, but the room really was starting to dissolve away entirely, and more light was just coming through. Most everything had gone translucent. He tried to shield his eyes, but his hands were translucent, too.

“Is that supposed to happen?” he asked, peering through his fingertips at the room.

Dana nodded.

The effect seemed to catch up to them each at different rates, though the room was already fading. Tamika stayed solid, angry, trying to pull away from Roger and get another crack at Kevin. Megan just watched them both, slightly fading, unsure of what she was supposed to be doing right now.

Tamika jerked free and came tumbling down on top of Kevin, and she rammed the dagger home in his chest, then pulled it out to do it again, and again. Megan finally pushed her off of him and spoke calmly, “Don’t. You’re wasting your energy. We need to get out of here.”

Looking up at her friend, prepared to get angry, Tamika instead caught the semi-translucent gaze of Megan’s eyes. She looked around the room. Pretty much everyone was beginning to go, now; some had realized it already, others hadn’t. Tamika looked at herself; she was fading too.

The only one who remained unaffected was Theo.

“What the hell’s so special about you?” she snapped at them when she noticed. “You’re not being undone—what the hell’s wrong with all of _us_?”

“I don’t know??” Theo just kept shaking their head, unsure of what the hell was going on. That was when the door was shoved back open, although translucent as it was, it almost looked like someone could walk straight through.

There stood Dave, still solid. “We need to get out of here,” he announced, “Alisha said we’re all going to—holy shit.”

“Yeah. Holy fucking shit,” Roger grumbled. “We’re all aware.”

Dave grimaced. “I’m sorry, I—we—we were trying to get a plan together, get you guys all out—I’m so sorry, Alisha said that anyone that Cecil—or… or Kevin—has changed… I’m sorry.” He scanned the group in the room to spot his own group, expecting to see them normal.

Carlos, finally aware of himself, had crept away from Dana’s side to crouch by Cecil and inspect him. He was fading, too, beautiful tattoos and all. The Smiling God wasn’t just a parasite he and Kevin had played with. It was much more than that.

He knew that they would all fade together, and maybe in that way, they became one.

“Carlos? Sylvia, too? Why are you guys…?” Dave was dumbfounded. He’d planned a rescue mission—the only one that even seemed salvageable was Theo, who was making their way over already, but looking guilty about it. Dr. Kayali seemed relieved to be on her feet again.

Tamika answered, “Cecil got them with the damn Smiling God thing. So unless this Alisha had any better ideas for the rest of us…”

Dave shook his head, “No, I’m sorry, they… they…” He trailed off. Carlos had vanished entirely.

                Megan was next to follow.

                “Tell me something useful!” Tamika threatened, reaching for the knife to brandish it at Dave instead, but Kevin’s hand was already around it, trying to pull it out of his chest. She jerked away, surprised, and then angry. “You fucking killed us all! That’s what we get for trusting you?”

                Dana chuckled, fading into obscurity.

                Kevin pulled the knife out on his own and offered the hilt to Tamika. “Kill… Cecil. Finish it.”

“And why should any of us trust you now?” Tamika accused.

“You’ll die if you don’t,” Kevin murmured.

Roger snatched the knife from her hand. They were fucked if they did, fucked if they didn’t, so he might as well give it a try. He aimed a few times for the chest, gave it a thought, and shoved the blade into Cecil’s third eye.

With one last shudder, he stopped breathing and fell slack. Roger sunk back away from him, leaving the knife where it was. He couldn’t look at it.

“Cecil was our _friend_ , Roger,” Tamika whined, voice heavy and defeated.

Theo and Dave were making their way for the exit, and they spun around when Dr. Kayali’s voice suddenly cut through the quiet in the room:

“What are you doing? No, no! Stop!”

She sunk to her knees again, gripping her head. “Stop, stop it! Don’t do this!”

Those still left in the room were becoming more solid, herself included. Dr. Kayali looked frantically from person to person, nails digging into her cheeks. She cried out, “You can’t do this, we were all so close—you!” She spun to face Kevin, where he still lay on the floor.

“This was your doing! All you’ve ever done is ruin everything!” she spat. “The Smiling God has given—has given _everything_ to you, and you repay him with this treason? How dare you.”

Kevin said nothing, his expression twisting more and more as she kept going.

Dave hurried over, “Sylvia. Hey—calm down. We can get out of here, right? You’re okay—we can go _home_ , think about it, we can—”

She grabbed his arms and pulled him to the floor with her. “I’m not going anywhere until this _wretch_ is taken care of,” she growled, and pulled Dave closer. “This is his fault!”

“No, Sylvia—you’re not in your head right now,” he pleaded. “This happened to Rachelle—”

Dr. Kayali pulled him closer. “Don’t tell me I’m not in my head,” she hissed in his ear, and took the earlobe in her mouth and bit down as hard as she could. When Tamika tried to pull her away from him, she tore half his ear off between her teeth. Dave let out a loud cry, and then dissolved into whimpering, covering his ear with his hand.

She spat out a mouthful of blood. “You turned away from us for that masked army. I don’t owe you any—”

Tamika socked her in the face, and she fell flat on her back.

“I’ve had enough of this stupid Smiling God bullshit—Kevin. Fix it.” She spun around to face him. “If you’re on our side—fix it. Bring everyone back. Send everyone back to their home.”

He grimaced. “I’m… not a god.”

She moved back over to his side. “I’m not playing with you. I know Cecil has brought people back before—your stupid Smiling God took Dana and Megan. Bring. Them. Back.”

“And bring back Carlos!” Dave insisted, voice cracking as he tried to call out.

“And Avery,” Theo added quietly. Dave looked over at them with a guilty frown, the realization hitting him that he’d forgotten entirely that Avery had been with them before. Blood was still dripping down his face, he couldn’t press hard enough to stop the flow, and any touch sent throbbing pains through what was left of his ear.

Tamika took Kevin by the shoulders. “Bring back everyone. Or I’ll kill you for real.”

He just sighed and muttered, “You can’t. And… neither can I.”

She looked for the knife, and made to tug it free from Cecil’s forehead, but the sight of it stopped her in her tracks. Tamika deflated, staring at the unmoving body of the radio host—no, friend—who she’d gotten so used to hearing all the time. Who’d spun boring everyday disaster into meaningful stories, delivered weather for the days they needed it most. All before everything had fallen apart.

Roger hadn’t moved from his side, still refusing to look at what he’d done, and Tamika scooted next to him. “I guess it’s good Janice didn’t come. I guess it’s… good a lot of people didn’t come.”

He looked over at her and nodded. “I’m glad my dad didn’t come.”

Tamika wiped at her eyes. “Yeah.”

Dr. Kayali had sat back up, looking around the room in a daze for a moment before she asked, “What the hell’s going on?” It sounded like her own voice again. Blood came dripping down from the corners of her eyes.

Theo asked, “Are you alright, Sylvia? You… don’t look so good.”

She frowned. “What happened? Why does my head hurt? Why’s there blood—”

“Don’t. Trust her,” Kevin hissed through gritted teeth, trying to sit up despite the pain. “She’s lying.” He propped himself on his elbows, it was good enough.

Dr. Kayali’s expression soured. “You can’t prove anything.”

“I think you just proved it yourself, man,” Tamika grumbled.

“You can’t prove anything!” she snapped, preparing to rise to her feet. Tamika shoved her down again and held her to the floor.

She looked over at Kevin. “Alright. You can’t fucking bring anyone back. Can you make this woman get any less crazy? At least do something useful.”

Kevin shook his head. “I… I can’t.”

Dr. Kayali laughed, “Well that’s no surprise. He can’t do _anything_ right, can he? What a disappointment. What a letdown. What a fucking failure.”

“Shut up.” Tamika rolled her eyes.

Theo was tending to Dave now, tearing strips off their own shirt to try and tie like a bandage over his ear. They glanced over for a moment, and then looked away again. “Her eyes are bleeding. Why? That didn’t happen with Rachelle.”

Dave winced and cursed, but stayed as still as he could.

“It picked... her,” Kevin muttered with considerable effort. “It was supposed. To pick me.”

“What picked—the Smiling God?” Tamika asked in disbelief. “I thought you were getting rid of that, wasn’t that the whole fucking point of that ritual? Taking it back out of Cecil. Now it’s in _her_?” She gestured down at Dr. Kayali, who had more blood pouring from her face now, looking quite visibly like she was coming undone.

Kevin answered, “I was. Taking it back. But the ritual. Didn’t work. It stayed with him. That’s. Why I had you kill him.” He frowned, facing toward where he thought Cecil was laying, though he wasn’t quite accurate. “…it took. The professor. Instead of me.”

                “Don’t you think you ought to use a bit more careful of a plan?” Theo snapped. “Now what do we do if it’s in Sylvia? That thing is going to tear her apart.”

                She started laughing, just laughing, she apparently had nothing to say. Tamika scowled but didn’t bother shutting her up. At least she wasn’t really struggling, maybe her body hadn’t the strength to keep it up.

                “I’m sorry,” Kevin sighed. “It will… take the next. Person. And the…next.”

                “Then make it take you,” Tamika growled.

                He answered grimly, “I… destroyed the bloodstones.”

                “So fucking use mine!” she snapped, checking to see which pocket she had them in—or had they ended up with her bag? Shit. Her bag. She’d left it back in the lab.

                Roger chucked a bloody velvet bag at Kevin and managed to hit him in the arm with it. He jumped, looked around as though he’d see some kind of attacker, and then calmed down.

                “Use Cecil’s,” he suggested. “You’re twins, aren’t you? They should work for you.”

                Kevin groped around the floor until he found where the bag had landed, and picked it up delicately, feeling it to tell which way was up. “I don’t… know. I’ve never. Tried.”

                “So try. Get that thing out of Sylvia,” Theo insisted.

                Dave whimpered a shaky but emphatic, “Yeah.”

                He sighed, defeated, and made his first demand: “If… I do this. You aren’t allowed. To throw me out. Because I’m not… like Cecil is.”

                “You don’t get to make that judgment call,” Tamika argued.

                “I’ve been. Doing all of this. You all. Hate me. And I’m not taking. That fucking thing back. Just so you can… toss me out again,” he insisted. “I’m tired. I just want to know… there’s somewhere to stay.”

                She said nothing, so Roger answered, “Just do it, Kevin. We’ll figure out—something.”

Kevin wasn’t so sure that sounded sincere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Synopsis:  
> Theo calls the others out of the broadcasting booth, and the walls are beginning to cover over in weird translucent symbols--but the symbols themselves aren't translucent, they're making the wall beneath them translucent. There's a bit of arguing over what that could mean, Dr. Kayali connects it to the Smiling God, and Dana then arrives in the room with Carlos, and calls it the great unraveling. Tamika snaps, tries to take Roger's knife from him so she can take it out on Kevin, blaming him for killing them all. They wrestle over the knife.  
> One by one, almost everyone in the room starts fading and becoming translucent. Dana, Carlos, and Dr. Kayali all accept this pleasantly, as the Smiling God has got them brainwashed anyway. The others freak out. Tamika gets the knife from Roger, starts stabbing the fuck out of Kevin until Megan pushes her away; Megan is fading out faster than she is, and she becomes upset and stops with the stabbing.  
> Dave enters the room, announcing that the Masked Army wants him to find anyone who needs rescuing, explaining how anyone that was changed by Cecil or Kevin is going to fade--and realizes with horror that the only one in the room who isn't fading, other than himself, is Theo. Theo guiltily starts over toward the exit, wanting to get out. Tamika goes for the knife, only to find that Kevin is actually awake and trying to pull it back out of his chest.  
> She yells at Kevin, who tells her to kill Cecil; Roger ends up taking the knife and ramming it into Cecil's head through his third eye. Once he's no longer alive, the Smiling God seems to go away, but not before taking Dana, Megan, and Carlos with it.  
> Dr. Kayali starts freaking out, yelling, grabbing her head, accusing Kevin of fucking everything up. Dave runs over to calm her down, and she yells at him as well. Then grabs a hold of him, and bites his ear off. Tamika hauls off and socks her, and she goes down.  
> Tamika threatens Kevin, demanding that he bring back everyone who's been taken away, but he says that he can't. She prepares to attack him again, but the knife is still stuck in Cecil's head, and she can't bring herself to touch it, suddenly realizing everything that's just happened to everyone who used to be her friends. Roger still hasn't moved from his side, and she sits next to him; both express being glad that more people hadn't come with.  
> Dr. Kayali gets back up, but she doesn't look quite right--blood is now dripping from her eyes. Theo expresses concern, and she tries to pretend like she isn't sure what's going on, but Kevin interrupts and says not to trust her. Tamika asks if he can at least make her less crazy, and he says he can't. Theo asks why her eyes are bleeding, since that didn't happen with Rachelle; Kevin admits that the Smiling God is now using her as its vessel. He had expected it to return to him, but it decided to take her instead.  
> Tamika responds with disbelief, arguing that his entire ritual was useless, and he explains that his plan was to kill Cecil so that the Smiling God would return to him. He admits that now, the Smiling God is probably just going to move from person to person, killing them all; Dr. Kayali's already bleeding quite a bit and doesn't seem to be doing well.  
> Tamika demands that Kevin take the Smiling God back, but he explains that he destroyed Roger's bloodstones. Tamika offers hers, but Roger offers Cecil's, thinking maybe they'll work well enough too. Kevin begrudgingly takes them, then makes a demand: if he's doing all of this for them, they have to accept him afterward, they can't just throw him away again. This seems to be the first time he tries to assert his own needs, and Tamika tells him that he doesn't get to decide what they do with him. Roger tells him to just fix it, and they'd figure out what to do later.
> 
>  
> 
> who knows where everyone goes when the Smiling God makes 'em vanish. guess you'll have to wait and find out. sooooon. ;)  
> as always, comments and kudos are great! you're all lovely.


	50. Vessel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin readies for one last bloodstone ritual, this time using Cecil's stones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no warnings, yaaay.

                “I need your help with this one,” Kevin muttered, spilling Cecil’s bloodstones onto the floor. “One of you. Not the scientists.” He ran his fingers over the faces of the stones, feeling the carved symbols in each before deciding where they went.

                Cecil’s bloodstones protested his touch, he could feel it just holding them.

                “What kind of help?” Tamika asked, gesturing for Roger to go help him; she was holding down Dr. Kayari, and though she wasn’t struggling right now, Tamika knew she was stronger than Roger just in case. Roger frowned but made his way over.

                “I need Roger’s knife,” Kevin explained. “So whoever is helping… grab that first.” He laid out each stone in turn.

                Roger looked back over at Cecil, still dead on the floor with Roger’s dagger stuck in his third eye. He shuddered, not really wanting to touch it. “What about Cecil’s knife?”

                “Look, Roger, his knife is clean,” he grumbled. “Yours isn’t. That’s sort of… important, right now. In case you haven’t noticed. I’m not bleeding.” He gestured at his chest, badly wounded from Tamika’s attack, but most of the blood on him was drying by now.

                “God. What the fuck are you?” Roger grumbled, moving begrudgingly to Cecil’s side. He reached out, hand shaking, and grabbed the fancy hilt of his knife and pulled. A spurt of blood followed. He shivered and looked away. “Fuck.”

Theo asked, “Is this something we should get out of the room for, or something?” They didn’t want to deal with anything else going wrong, honestly.

Kevin shrugged. “Go for it. I don’t need you. I need… the vessel. And someone to hold her. And someone to help me. You scientists… can leave.”

Theo tried to help Dave up, and he protested lamely, saying something about keeping an eye on Dr. Kayali that wasn’t very strongly worded. He was dizzy, and Theo helped him up and toward the door with relative ease.

“We should get you medical attention,” they muttered on the way out.

After a moment’s pause, Kevin remarked, “They actually… left. I thought. They were better than that, at least.”

“Kevin, come on. Let’s just get this done,” Tamika grumbled. “What do you need Roger to do?”

He held out his hand, palm up. “Bring me. The knife. And. I’m sorry. But bring me… something from the booth. It needs to be bloody.” Roger pressed the knife into his hand, and he set it in his lap and resumed working with the stones.

Roger looked toward his friend, imploring—he didn’t want to go back in that fucking room. She finally groaned and moved off of Dr. Kayali. “Hold her down, then. I’ll do it. But if you let her go she might mess everything up. So don’t.”

“I won’t,” he insisted, moving over to pin her down. Dr. Kayali smiled up at him, delirious, and said nothing. Blood was running from her nose, dripping from her ears.

He shuddered but he sat on top of her, in Tamika’s place. “Just stay still,” he muttered down to her. “We’ll uh—fix this.”

Tamika had wandered into the booth by the time Kevin replied, “We’re killing her. So don’t make any promises. She’s dying, anyway.”

Roger frowned, and looked over at him. “Can’t you or Cecil bring people back? I thought that Cecil’s done it before, and my dad said—”

“If we know them… well enough,” Kevin muttered. “I don’t know this woman.”

The room went silent.

“Alright, I’ve got you some damn blood,” Tamika grumbled, walking over and dropping something onto the floor next to Kevin. He reached out, feeling for it; it was some bit of fabric, soaked in coagulating blood. It must have been a shirt, by the feel. He frowned.

“Did you strip this… off of Avery?”

“Yeah. It’s drenched. So use it. What else do you need?” Tamika stood by his side, arms crossed, trying to look angry but she was getting a bit more nervous. What _did_ Kevin want help with? Was it even safe—was anything he did safe?

He sighed. “Make sure… I’m not too bloody? Nothing left over from before. I can’t even see. What I’ve got left on me. And if I’ve got one too many symbols. It won’t seal the Smiling God to me—I don’t know what it will do.”

Tamika relaxed. “Oh. Yeah. Here, actually—Roger, you have any tissues or anything?” She searched her pockets for something to smear off the old symbols with. He’d lost much of the writing in moving around, some was smudged from being picked up, some vanished into the blood that coated his back and arms.

Roger checked his pockets, then yanked off his shirt instead. “It’s already a mess so whatever. I don’t want it back when you’re done but you owe me another.”

She caught the balled up shirt and snorted. “Wow. Needy, are we?”

“Shut up,” Roger whined. “It was my favorite shirt.”

Tamika shook her head and sat down next to Kevin. “Hold still,” she muttered, and started trying to wipe away the blood, at least as much as she could get off him. Nobody had bothered cleaning it off since they’d gotten here, and Kevin winced when she scrubbed at the caked on blood.

“Careful, please,” he asked, voice less certain than when he was bossing everyone around.

“You’re a mess.” She kept scrubbing, because it was the only way to get rid of everything, and she’d damn well rather make him squirm than risk this getting fucked up. Enough had gone wrong already—one more ritual didn’t need to go wrong too.

Kevin gritted his teeth and said nothing, letting her do what she wanted, even letting her scrub his face clean. Everything she touched felt on fire, and kept stinging after she was done, and he was shaking by then and couldn’t focus.

“—at me, but you can nod your head or something and let me know you’re still with us, Kevin.” Tamika’s hands were on his shoulders now. Vaguely, he realized he wasn’t sitting up. She shook him a second time. “Come on. Who the hell faints at being cleaned?”

He nodded his head and she let go, but he didn’t say anything.

“…you had better stay with us. We’re not exactly experts in all the weird rituals you’ve been using. That’s… I don’t think a single one of those is legal,” Tamika muttered.

“Sorry,” he answered shakily. He held out his hands and she helped him sit back up. With some effort, he stayed upright.

Tamika moved back a bit. “You should be good to go now, if you don’t need anything else. The symbols are all gone, anyway.”

They were both just waiting for him to do it. Kevin laid out the rest of the stones and got to work on the symbols, and hoped he did them alright just from memory. It had worked relatively well the last time. His memory couldn’t have been failing him that badly.

He just realized, he didn’t want to do it.

He really, really didn’t want to fucking do it.

And it dawned on him; he didn’t _have_ to do it.

Kevin wanted to blurt out, tell them to go fuck themselves—the Smiling God could take them, and he’d run before it had a chance to get to him. Maybe the others saw his hesitation; Tamika’s voice was a warning with no genuine concern: “Kevin, is everything alright?”

“We need to get out of here,” he responded. “Someone needs to help move Cecil.”

Tamika frowned, taken aback. “What? We need to get rid of the Smiling God. That’s what you said you were going to do—you don’t just get to go back on your word like that.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. She’s dying. We need to leave—and leave it here.”

“You can’t just give up on somebody like that!” Tamika snapped. “We’ve already lost so many people today and—”

Roger interrupted her, “Tamika. He’s right. She’s... messed up.” He gestured at Dr. Kayali, now comatose and with blood dripping from her nose, her eyes, her mouth—anywhere the blood could escape. She wasn’t moving, wasn’t laughing, wasn’t doing anything anymore.

“We need to go. Before we lose anyone else,” Kevin muttered. “I don’t want that thing back. I can get us home. Out of this place. But we need to go.”

“Everyone?” she asked, “You can get everyone home? There are others—”

“Yes. Please. If I take it back. I can’t help you. Then we’re waiting on Cecil. And we’re stuck here—help me up. One of you grab Cecil. We need to go.”

Roger got up off Dr. Kayali, muttering an apology to her as he made his way over to help Kevin up. Tamika frowned down at Cecil’s body, and crouched to grab hold of him. He still wasn’t breathing, wasn’t moving, but that probably meant nothing—if Kevin was telling them to grab him, maybe he was going to just wake back up on his own.

“Wish you hadn’t sent those scientists off,” Tamika grumbled. “One of them could’ve helped, Cecil’s heavy.” She got him up anyway, or at least well enough to drag his legs. Didn’t help that she was shorter than him by a long shot.

“Sorry,” Kevin answered. “Let’s go—”

“Are we just leaving Cecil’s bloodstones behind?” Roger asked. Kevin sighed and asked to be set back down—fine, he’d gather them up. But it wasn’t like he hadn’t lost his own. It wasn’t like Roger hadn’t lost his. Maybe bloodstones didn’t matter.

Tamika didn’t mention how hers were in another room.

“Is that everything?” Kevin asked, stuffing the last stone into the little velvet pouch. “Any other things you’re dying to grab?”

Roger helped him up again. “I think that’s it.”

“Then let’s fucking go.”

Kevin stumbled along at Roger’s side, his feet threatening time and again to just fail him; they weren’t getting anywhere very fast, he hoped that Dr. Kayali held out long enough, that they’d get somewhere safe, somewhere far away and never have to deal with the Smiling God again.

He hit the floor before they’d gotten far enough away, and Roger started trying to drag him. “Fuck—Tamika—help me here, or—shit. No. You’ve got Cecil. Crap.” Roger pulled him by one arm, barely making progress. It wasn’t ideal in the least, but was the best he could muster.

“It would be really fucking convenient right now if either one of you could walk,” Tamika snapped. “How long is it supposed to take before Cecil wakes back up—he’s going to, right? That didn’t kill him for good, it didn’t kill you—he’s fucking fainted again hasn’t he, Roger?”

Roger nodded. “Before he even hit the ground.”

“This is stupid. We’re not getting anywhere like this—listen. Do you want to run ahead and grab someone to help, or should I? Because one of us has to stay back with both of them in case anything weird happens.” Tamika hoped nothing weird would happen, anyway.

“I, uh…” Roger looked down at Cecil and Kevin, both unconscious, bloody messes. Tamika was already trying to shoo him away when he stopped her, “Wait. I’ll stay—you go. You can run faster.”

Tamika took her first few steps and paused. “…stay safe, Roger. We’re all we’ve got left here anymore.”

He forced a sad little smile. “Cecil’s going to wake back up. We’ll get out of here. I’ll be safe.”

She took off down the hall, running for the exit, feet landing heavily on the tile floor. Outside, masked army delegates had herded the students together in a large mass; there were surprisingly more of them left than Tamika had expected to see. They must have been holed up somewhere before, to stay safe. She ran straight over to Alisha and Doug and arrived out of breath, panting.

Doug crouched by her, his mask blankly watching her face. [Are you alright?] he asked, writing the words into the sand. He wouldn’t dare to use his voice, presently, in front of so many people.

Tamika tried to answer initially, then stopped trying to talk, crouched in the sand, and wrote her own reply: [Need help carry Cecil Kevin]

The grammar was quite frankly atrocious and normally she might have been ashamed, but there wasn’t time to waste writing a proper sentence right now. Her words worked well enough. Doug nodded and gestured over to a couple of smaller masked figures, ones that could fit properly into the building without having to crawl or stick to taller spaces.

He pointed to Tamika’s words on the ground, and the other figures nodded, understanding.

“C-come on,” Tamika wheezed, and started trying to run back, but the running thing wasn’t going to be working anymore. She walked the whole way back instead, flanked on both sides by masked figures, looking and feeling incredibly small.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this chapter was initially supposed to actually end in a ritual, but then i realized that there was no reason why it had to be that predictable, so here we are with this new turn of events.
> 
> comments/kudos are always appreciated! u guys rock.


	51. The Missing and the Missed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil wakes to face what's happened while he wasn't himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no warnings! happy new year!

Roger stayed tense while he waited for Tamika, watching over both Kevin and Cecil while knowing that if anything went weird, either one of them could overpower him. Well. Maybe not Kevin, anymore. Not blind and wounded.

But it wasn’t Kevin who moved first—it was Cecil. And Tamika was still gone when he groaned and reached up to rub at his head, which must have hurt like hell after having a knife rammed in through his third eye. Cecil didn’t open his eyes at first.

“…are you alright?” Roger finally asked. The Smiling God was still in that woman, right?

Cecil grimaced and replied, “I’ll be fine. Just hung over—Roger?” He lowered his hands abruptly and opened his eyes to look up at Roger, cross-eyed without his glasses. “I haven’t seen you in a while. How’s Earl—erk. What happened?” He winced, put his hands to his head again.

Roger sighed, relieved. It sounded like Cecil was back. “A lot. Um. I don’t know where to start. Do you remember anything…? The Smiling God got you and—”

“It got me? What, you mean—” he finally became aware of Kevin, and sat up shakily, looking down at him. “…did you kill Kevin? To get rid of it?”

He shook his head. “He’s not dead. I don’t think. He was awake a few minutes ago. I don’t fucking know. Honestly. You can’t expect me to know what the fuck’s going on. This is such a mess—and people are dead—and I had to kill _you_ —and, fuck, this is a mess.” Roger buried his face in his hands. “I just want to go home. You can get us home, right? You or Kevin, I don’t care.”

Cecil grimaced. “Roger, he’s dangerous. You’re lucky Kevin isn’t awake right now.”

“See, that’s what I thought!” he snapped, “But then you turned on us—you _killed_ people, Cecil. That Smiling God makes people _crazy_ , I don’t know, Kevin was helping us, maybe that thing was the only reason he was dangerous. I don’t know.”

“He’s always been dangerous, Roger,” Cecil muttered, watching Kevin for a moment. He wasn’t moving or anything, at any rate. Didn’t seem to be breathing. He couldn’t have put up much of a fight anymore, at the very least.

Roger didn’t say anything, but sat in silence, refusing to pick a side, like he’d have done so easily just a few days ago.

Tamika’s arrival spared them of any continued conversation. The masked figures flanking her stopped and let her approach on her own, which she did cautiously. She stopped a few feet away, looking down at Cecil.

“Are you… back with us, Cecil?” she asked hesitantly.

Cecil frowned. “Did I leave? I guess I’m back.” He looked beyond her at the blurry masked figures, everything looked pretty hazy and he could only guess that something had happened to his glasses, but who could tell what.

Tamika walked the last few feet toward him, crouched, and threw her arms around Cecil in a hug. She didn’t even care how bloody he was, and he hugged back. “Fuck. I thought we’d lost you too, Cecil,” she muttered miserably. “After Dana and Megan—”

“Dana?” he asked. “Megan? What happened to them?”

“I don’t know—they. They just vanished,” she answered. “The Smiling God did something, I thought Roger and I were screwed too—it took Megan and Dana and that scientist.”

It dawned on Cecil slowly, and then all at once he realized what had seemed off—he pulled back from the hug. “The scientist—Carlos? Something happened to Carlos?” he asked, frantic. “I thought he must have been with someone else—where’s Carlos?”

“I don’t know,” Tamika answered, “Wherever the others are, I don’t know. Nobody killed them, they just vanished—maybe they went somewhere.”

Cecil grabbed her shoulders, fingers digging in hard. “Where’s Carlos? Did—did Kevin do something to him? Tamika. Tell me. Tamika!”

She answered, taken aback by his sudden reaction, “I don’t know! I don’t think so, I think it was the Smiling God that—”

“It was Kevin,” he snapped, letting go of Tamika to turn on his brother instead—and Kevin wasn’t moving, Kevin wasn’t going to be able to defend himself. Cecil descended on him, all fists and tentacles and bubbling rage, shaking him violently. Yelling for him to wake up.

“I know you’re not dead, you’re immortal!” he snapped, shaking Kevin. He didn’t wake up. Cecil slammed him back against the floor. “You took Carlos from me. I want him back!”

Roger tried to interrupt, “Cecil, stop! He’s already hurt.”

Cecil snorted, “Don’t let him fucking turn on the pity card. He’s been doing that all his _life_. Pity me, pity me, I fucking destroyed my own life—I don’t pity him. I _hate_ him.” He slapped Kevin across the face and hissed, “Wake up, come on and face me with your stupid Smiling God—get your hands off me!” He tried to pull away as Tamika's masked friends rushed over to grab him.

Between the two of them, they managed to hold Cecil's arms back, but his tentacles were too many for them to hold, and both masked figures were forced to release him, lest they stand there and be strangled instead. Cecil spat at them, “Don't touch me.”

He turned to go at Kevin again, and Tamika had shoved herself between the two of them, pissed.

“You’re not listening to anything we’re saying are you?!” she snapped. “He hasn’t got the Smiling God anymore—we need to get out of here before it comes back and finds one of you again. And this isn’t getting out of here!”

“I’m not leaving without Carlos!” he howled.

“Well I’ve got some news for you, he’s not even here!” Tamika retorted. “And funny, I don’t see you saying anything about Dana or Megan—do you even care about any of us? Are we just fucking disposable to you next to your newest scientist beau? Well, Cecil?”

Cecil opened his mouth to answer, but just closed it again stupidly. It took him a minute to come up with his reply. “You’re not disposable to me, Tamika. You’re all my friends.”

She rolled her eyes. “You sure didn’t get violently defensive of poor Dana. She thought you were one of her best friends, Cecil.” Tamika folded her arms. “Was she? Are any of us?”

Cecil said nothing, and Tamika watched him long enough to conclude that he definitely wasn't about to have anything to say for himself, either. She sighed and turned away

“Come on. We need to get out of here. I don’t know what’s going to happen if we stay, but Kevin said that the Smiling God would leave that woman if she died and—I don’t know who it’ll go back to. It might go back to you again.”

Cecil stood in silence, watching as Roger tried to pick up Kevin again. The masked figures came back over, one of them hoisting Kevin up off the ground into their arms. Cecil watched him get picked up, and figured the second one was supposed to be sent for him. But he was on his feet, and the other masked figure made no attempt to help him, after he'd attacked them both.

Tamika started to lead the way down the hall, followed closely by the masked figures, then Cecil, and Roger taking up the flank in silence. Cecil asked quietly, “Where are we going, anyway?”

“Back out. Everyone’s outside. Kevin said that he knew how to get us all back home—I’m hoping you have some idea too, right? Please tell me you do,” Tamika answered.

“Well, yes, I suppose it’s as easy as asking the Void to let us back through,” Cecil answered.

She nodded. “Good.”

The rest of the walk was mostly silent, but as they neared the exit, Cecil spoke again. Just one single, final line: “We're leaving Kevin here though.”

Tamika stopped walking, gesturing to the masked figures to go ahead and back out. She stood her ground as Cecil stopped walking, and stood his. Roger awkwardly shuffled over to stand by Tamika.

“I'm not even having this discussion with you, Cecil,” she insisted.

“Good,” he replied, “Because it isn't a discussion. We are leaving Kevin here.”

Roger scowled. “What, so the Smiling God can take him back again? Maybe it's better not having that happen?”

“So long as he remains here, the Smiling God is not even a problem,” Cecil pointed out.

“And then when people come here—why _was_ there an entire university here anyway, Cecil?” Tamika asked. “This has your name written all over it. If Kevin was stuck here and couldn't have done it, after all—what did you even _do_?”

Cecil said nothing.

“Yeah, hey—doesn't one of you guys have to change shit?” Roger frowned.

“Unless there's somebody else now doing it in which case _please_ do let us know, Cecil.” Tamika knew well enough that wasn't the answer, though Cecil refused to give one. He shoved past them both to march outside where everyone else was gathered. Tamika and Roger exchanged a look with one another before they followed after him.

Outside, students and masked figures alike were huddled and watching the door. The word had spread after Tamika left with her guards—there was going to be a way out. Everything was going to be alright. It was hard to be confident, but even more difficult not to hope at all.

Cecil trailed to a stop to look over the gathered crowd, blurry with his lack of glasses. The University had been enormous, compared to what he was used to. Even seeing those students still left standing, it was like he stood in front of the whole of Night Vale, at least the Night Vales he remembered from times gone by.

Because this was the new Night Vale, wasn't it?

He cleared his throat and addressed them with as much volume as he could, “I want to talk to whoever is in charge here.” A murmur rose up in the group of students as they tried to figure out if any one of them had a leadership position.

Alisha had been hunched over the guard carrying Kevin, carefully inspecting his wounds, when Cecil addressed the crowd. They smoothed back Kevin's hair and walked away, stopping in front of Cecil to crouch down. They spoke, quietly, in old Nightvalian: 'Is the Smiling God gone now?'

Cecil nodded. 'It's gone again, I'm me again.'

'From Kevin?' they asked, still watching him from behind their bird mask.

'...I don't know. That's what Tamika said, that it's gone, but...' Cecil grimaced, looking down at the sand. 'I don't think it's worth the risk. He should stay here.'

Alisha tilted his chin back up with a finger, so he was forced to look back up at them. Not that their expression came through behind the mask, if they'd even had enough of a face to emote with. 'Cecil, your brother doesn't belong here.'

'He doesn't belong in Night Vale,' Cecil insisted, pulling back from their touch.

'You don't believe anybody belongs in Night Vale unless you like them,' Alisha replied. 'Are you going to start sending these children back here once you get tired of putting up with them?' They swept an arm out toward the crowd. 'Nobody deserves that kind of say.'

'Would you want... undesirable people in your city?' Cecil asked. 'If you could choose who you allowed, why would you let just anybody in?'

Alisha sighed. 'We can choose, Cecil. Every person who you've ever sent here, we could have thrown away. We had that choice, but look. Look at everyone here.'

Scattered among the gathered students were a number of faceless, masked figures. Individuals who he knew had come here from his request or Kevin's. But mostly, he'd sent them—Kevin himself had ended up sent over so long ago.

'Just because you have the ability to do anything you want doesn't mean you should just do it,' Alisha insisted. 'I know that you sent all of these people here. I don't know if they realize it yet, but I do. I don't know why you sent everyone here, and I don't know why you came back or what you're trying to play at, but I don't really care why.'

Cecil frowned, looking away. 'It was for Carlos. I... I don't know what happened to him though. I don't know where he went, I—...I just don't know what to do without him.' He hung his head.

Alisha patted his head with just two fingers. 'You'll figure something out, Cecil. I hope that you do figure something out, for his sake.' They pulled back after a moment. 'You need to get everyone out of here. Pleases bring your brother back too. He doesn't deserve to be stuck here alone.'

He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again. Cecil almost couldn't find the voice to speak. 'He wouldn't be alone. I can't take you back with me—none of you. None of the masked army. I can only take back the people who are... still people.'

'I already know that,' Alisha replied calmly. 'I'm not trying to make you bring me back. I didn't expect it would work. You need to bring back everyone you can, though. Don't leave anyone behind because you find them distasteful.'

Cecil grimaced. 'I'm sorry.'

'No, you're not,' Alisha answered. 'If you were genuinely apologetic... you could have done something about this a long time ago. You're only upset with yourself because I'm upset with you. Don't think I've forgotten what it was like growing up. You and Kevin are so much the same like that.' They shook their head.

He shook his head. 'No, I'm sorry though—'

Alisha interrupted him, 'I'm not accepting your apology. We aren't friends, Cecil. Just take everyone home.'

After that, he lapsed into silence for a length before he finally nodded, stuffing his hands into his pockets. 'Alright. I can get them home—wait, where are my bloodstones?'

They paused. 'I don't actually know.'

Cecil spun around to locate Roger or Tamika, and found the two of them hovering over by Kevin and the silent guard holding him. He cringed but approached anyway, planting a hand on Tamika's should to turn her around to face him. “Where are my bloodstones?” he asked.

“...oh. Kevin's got them,” she explained as she patted him down to figure out which pocket he'd stuffed the bag of bloodstones into. Tamika pulled out the fancy little pouch, by now bloodstained and nasty like Cecil had tried so hard to keep it from becoming. That was pretty much the fate of anything Kevin touched. She offered it out to Cecil and he reeled back from it, horrified.

“You let Kevin touch them?” he asked. “What the hell did he do with them?”

Roger snorted, “Not much. He stopped before he even did the ritual. Mine got destroyed so you're the lucky one here.”

Cecil frowned. “Destroyed?”

“In whatever ritual tore the Smiling God back out of you.” Roger shrugged. He tried not to look distressed at all by the fact, but between him and Tamika, there was going to be a lot of trouble coping after the mess this had all become.

“Can you get everyone out, Cecil?” Tamika asked, guessing at why he wanted the bloodstones.

He nodded. “I can. Well. I can't get the masked army out. They belong here now—I can help you though. And... I guess all the students, and Kevin.” His brother's name, he said with a certain amount of disgust. He wouldn't look at Kevin.

Tamika sighed. “Good. Get us out of here. The sooner the better.”

“We'll be out before you know it,” Cecil replied with confidence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can you feel the story beginning to wrap up? because it's beginning to wrap up. which probably doesn't mean 2-3 chapters left, but might mean 5-6 chapters left. who knows? i don't even know. this was supposed to be 30k when i started.
> 
> comments/kudos are appreciated as always! you're all great. c:


	52. Return Trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anita Mitchell is awoken to news: the Voice of Night Vale has returned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no warnings

Anita Mitchell heard about the return as the first few students stepped out of the gaping hole where the University used to be. In the middle of the night, she should have been—no, she _was_ sleeping, at least until she wasn't anymore.

Erika's looming presence in the corner of her bedroom woke her, like the feeling of something cold slithering down her back. Opening her eyes, she was faced with more than a few eyes staring back at her as the angel hovered nearby and stared, stared, stared with way too many eyes.

She whined and rolled to face away. “It's late—what time is it? It's still dark, I _don't_ do shows in the middle of the night, Erika,” she complained. “Nobody would even listen.”

But the voice that responded told a completely different tale: tonight, the mission wasn't to tell another story. They'd used her well enough and long enough for that. Tonight, she was off the hook—the real Voice of Night Vale was back.

For a moment, she just paused, unsure how to take that. Anita rolled over to face them again. “...what, so I'm the _fake_ Voice?” she complained. “I've sure done _everything_ you wanted of me for weeks—“ she cut off as the angel lit up with a furious glow, starting from their fingertips and burning up their arms to the rest of their body.

Anita knew better than to argue, then. She sighed and climbed out of bed, sinking to the floor to pick up the previous night's clothes where she'd left them. She tugged them on over her boxers and made herself presentable before she approached Erika, who still stood by the door, glowing like an irritated sun and too bright to look at directly.

“I don't know what your deal is. Angels work in mysterious ways, whatever, okay. I still thinking jerking me around for weeks and then _replacing_ me is rude as fuck.” She tried to sound as solid and brave as she could, but still edged past the angel with a nervous tenseness that didn't fade until she was out of her room and past the other angels napping on the living room set.

The [weather](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyOD5WoLhgg) outside was crisp and melodious, glowing dimly in the east and probably raining downtown. Anita stood on the fire escape outside her apartment and stared up for a moment at the lights in the sky overhead, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the light level. She tugged her hoodie tighter and made her way down to the sidewalk, and then set off for the University.

Maybe the return of the _real_ Voice of Night Vale meant she was off the hook for all the reporting, of the hook for watching all the Erikas, off the hook for a lot of the irritating things she'd just sort of gotten used to over the past few weeks. After the others from old Night Vale had left, she'd been held back—kept by the angels, who found a better use than sending her along to help the others.

Somebody needed to be the Voice of a town on the verge of psychological collapse. The job got easier by the day, as everything became more familiar. Now it was like second nature. She could hardly remember the old days, reporting on celebrities, reporting on—what was it? Traffic?

(If you look into the west tonight, you will see seagulls. This is very odd, as there isn't any sea, perhaps seas don't exist. Traffic on the interstate is backed up. Everyone is looking to the west. I would advise you, please do not look. You will want to look, but don't.)

Anita hurried down the sidewalk, picking up the pace to keep herself warm against the cold desert night. She walked past alleys full of things she knew not to look at, ignored the whispering over her right shoulder that was pleading for her to shop at Whole Foods, and made it out into the square where the University had once sat.

One by one, students were stumbling out through the door in the Dog Park fence—that was what she'd been calling it, the Dog Park, but she remembered it still as the University. She'd been reporting it for weeks as the Dog Park.

(Stay out of the Dog Park. Don't think about the Dog Park. She knew why. Many seemed to have forgotten, unimaginable as it seemed.)

Standing still so far away, she felt at once like an outcast. Anita Mitchell scanned the growing group for familiar faces, and saw many; people who she'd seen around town for years, now back, safe and sound, and still alright. Professors, students, stumbling out of the door confused and disoriented. Slowly realizing where they were. Hooting, hollering, hugging each other, kissing the ground. They were home, they were _home_ , they were safe and they were home.

Anita kept her eyes trained on the door, waiting for Cecil to step through. Her feet propelled her forward. She was going to give him a piece of her fucking mind when she saw him—so help her, god.

Now, so close to the doorway, she would help students stumble past and wait as each face was not the one she was looking for. Nobody was paying much attention, and many had run off the moment they realized they were home—to find their families, to check up on pets, to just go home and pretend that everything had been a terrible dream.

A man she rather thought looked like Cecil came staggering through the open door and fell into her arms, looking nothing but broken, eyeless—despite herself, Anita Mitchell dropped him in shock. “Cecil? Shit, what the fuck happened?” she asked, forgetting the piece of mind she'd wanted to give him.

Kevin's third eye slowly opened to look up at her, uncertain and nervous of the consequences—but nothing burned, no bright light forced its way out into the world. He just slowly focused and tried to see her clearly, with vision that had never been clear to begin with.

She crouched at his side, still watching. “You with me, Cecil?”

“No,” he answered, slowly breaking out into a smile that felt oddly natural after so long. “I— I'm Kevin. I'm not Cecil.”

“You—what? There's two of you?” she frowned, brows furrowed, and looked him over a little more closely to determine that he _did_ have some differences from Cecil, and not just from being wounded. The tattoos that danced over his skin were pointed, repeating triangles and sharp forms instead of Cecil's tentacles. His clothing, stiff and stained with blood and perhaps black ink, was more reserved than Cecil's typical style.

Kevin tried to sit back up and she reached out to steady him. “How many are there? Like you I mean, I thought Cecil was the only one?” The concept of a town full of three-eyed freaks briefly crossed her mind before Kevin's words dispersed the image.

“J-just. Just us two,” he replied, and added as an afterthought, “Brothers.”

The next to step out through the doorway was Cecil himself, bloody but on his feet looking unharmed and rather pleased with himself for about five seconds.

“You!” Anita Mitchell snapped, rising so quickly they dropped Kevin again.

“Me?” Cecil asked, taking a few steps back as they advanced on him. “Can I help you, uh—what was your name again?”

They grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. “It's Mx. Mitchell to you, asshat. Do you have any fucking idea what this place has been like? What you've _done_ to us all? While you were off—I don't even know what you think you were fucking doing! You were supposed to fix it and be _back_!”

Cecil cracked a nervous grin. “It... ...well I'm back now?”

Mx. Mitchell socked him in the face and took a few steps back as he crumpled to the ground, nursing a cracked and bloody nose. It was almost lucky he had no glasses for their fist to break. Students kept filtering out through the door behind him, stumbling awkwardly around the scene before they took in their surroundings.

“Ever since you came here, nothing's been fucking right anymore,” Mx. Mitchell snapped. “I wake up in the morning, I report on what _livestock_ the damn Glow Cloud—allhail—has dropped on city hall over the night! Station Management keeps _killing_ my interns! There are _angels_ sleeping on my fucking couch and—why are you laughing? Why the hell are you laughing?!”

Cecil tried to stifle his laughter, but it turned from snickering into damn near hysterics before finally, shudderingly, dissolving into quiet sobbing. He buried his face in his hands. “O-oh, oh gods.”

Mx. Mitchell stared at him in silence, then looked to Kevin for some kind of answer of what the hell was happening, but he was still laying where they'd dropped him. “...what the hell is _wrong_ with you two?” they asked after a long moment.

“I th-think I'm dying,” Kevin sputtered out with a tired little laugh. “I'll be fine.”

Cecil wailed, “We lost Carlos, it's my fault, we lost Carlos...”

“I-it is your fault asshole,” Kevin spat.

Tamika stumbled through the door, looked around a moment, then grinned down at Cecil. “It worked! You—...okay, what's going on?” She looked from face to face, Cecil with his bloody nose pouring down his chin, Kevin laid out on the blacktop, Mx. Mitchell staring disapprovingly down at them both.

“If you've got any idea, I'd like to know,” Mx. Mitchell grumbled. “I've been having to look after this damn town for _weeks_ while you guys took your time coming back. What gives?”

Tamika frowned. “It was a mess. We got there, Cecil was possessed and Kevin was... dead? We had to figure out how to get everything sorted out, and even still...not everyone got out alright.”

Mx. Mitchell watched her for a moment, and then their expression softened into a small frown. “Oh. Shit, I thought it was just... I didn't know it was so bad. Sorry.”

She shook her head. “It is what it is. We knew it'd be a disaster, going in. It was just necessary, and we did what had to be done.”

Roger stumbled out the door and hit into Tamika from behind. She reached out to steady him and cracked a small smile. “Hey, it worked.”

“It... it...?” He looked around. “It _worked_. Where's—”

She pointed at Cecil, down near their feet, wiping tears from his eyes though his sobbing had calmed back down again. He had his nose pinched between two fingers to try and stop the bleeding. He didn't look up when he muttered, “Of course it worked.”

“You know, you can't blame us for wondering, Cecil. So much has been going badly,” Tamika pointed out with a sigh. “Anything could have happened.”

He said nothing for a moment, then he nodded. Another student bumbled through the door and smacked into Roger and Tamika, and they finally moved away from the exit to give it a little space.

“So...the door should just stay open then, until everyone comes through?” Roger asked after a moment, watching the door swing shut over the blackness of the Void once more.

“It stays open until Alisha breaks the bloodstone circle,” he clarified. “...then, it will close.” Cecil stared at the symbol carved into his palm, at least the hand that wasn't too busy pinching his nose. He'd had to leave his bloodstones behind—it was just logistically impossible to take them with _and_ to leave the desert otherworld. If he'd tried to break the circle, he wouldn't have been able to get back out, either. And he couldn't wait for another solution—with the very real possibility of the Smiling God taking back either Cecil or Kevin, they'd had to flee pretty early in the group just to make sure it didn't have that chance. Waking Kevin up had been a challenge. Now he looked like he'd blacked back out again.

Cecil caught himself staring down at his brother's comatose form, lost in thought when Tamika nudged him with her foot to get his attention again. “Cecil. Are you still with us?”

“Hm? Of course,” he answered, looking up at her. “What were you saying?”

Tamika sighed. “I was asking if you thought we needed to stay here all night to be sure that everyone gets through safely, it's been a long day and—”

“Feel free to leave,” Cecil interrupted. “Everything is your choice, I can hold you to nothing, because nothing is real, and... ...” he sighed. “No, yeah, you can go. I don't even feel like turning it into some fucking joke right now. Take Kevin with you.”

“...of course,” Tamika replied, gesturing to Roger to help her lift Kevin up. “Do you have someplace we can stay for the time being, Anita?” she asked, hoisting Kevin up by the shoulders while Roger lifted his legs.

Mx. Mitchell nodded. “You can probably spend the night—ah, maybe not my house. The couches are already full. What about the radio station? As long as you stay away from Station Management, it should be safe enough.”

“I guess it can't be worse than where we've been,” Roger admitted.

“That was pretty much my line of thinking,” Mx. Mitchell agreed. “Cecil, are you—”

He waved a hand at the three of them, dismissing them. “I'll stay. Watch the door. It's fine.”

“...alright. Well, see you, Cecil,” Tamika muttered, and the other two said nothing. They left, Mx. Mitchell leading the way while Roger and Tamika carried Kevin through the streets. There at least had to be a few hours left before dawn, at least a few hours to rest, if hours could ever be predicted with accuracy.

The station—the newest home of NVCR—was quiet in the dead of night, but for the strange burbles and muttered ancient tongues of a sleeping Station Management. Anita Mitchell unlocked the back door to tiptoe in, gesturing for the others to follow after her.

“Station Management won't hear if you stay quiet,” she explained in a low whisper as they stepped in through the back door, into the break room. A few cold cups of coffee sat out on the table, but otherwise the room was mostly clean. Anita gestured to a couch in the corner of the room. “Someone can sleep on that.”

“...there's three of us,” Roger complained quietly, “And one couch?”

“Well there's another in the lobby but I would suggest staying back here. The door barricades really well, if push comes to shove,” she explained, grabbing a chair to carry it over and prove the barricade worked to the other two.

“Well, Kevin can sleep on the floor,” Tamika grumbled, shrugging her shoulders toward the corner of the room, directing Roger to carry him over. He didn't protest; Kevin was laid on the floor.

Anita watched them for a moment before asking, “What even happened there? That guy—Kevin? You said that was his name? He looks fucked up.”

Roger shook his head. “Crazy shit happened. Don't ask... ...please.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled, and then there was quiet until Anita Mitchell excused herself to go home, promising to return in the morning. Promising that they'd be alright in there, away from Station Management, where she'd holed up on more than one occasion.

Outside, it was too damn cold marching home. The only thing she could even think anymore was crawling into bed, away from everything, maybe sleep in for a while. The morning broadcast could wait.

She crept up the fire escape, back to her apartment, and opened the door to find the entire apartment empty, not an angel in sight. Anita sighed, wandered off to bed, and didn't think about it. Well, they were done with her now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaahhhhh. i'm in my last semester before graduation, wrapping up way too many projects, so this may be a very, very slow update schedule now. apologies in advance. 8D;;
> 
> hope u guys enjoy it anyway!


	53. Radio Show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin gets a hold of a broadcasting booth and says his part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no warnings, hooray!

                [Good morning, Desert Bluffs!

                Okay, okay, I'm just kidding, I know you g-guys aren't Desert Bluffs. Night Vale though, right? Night Vale. Ooh. I never thought I'd get to say that over the air. Wait w-waitwaitwait, let's do this properly.]

                Kevin shuffled papers in his hands, though the sight from his third eye was so indistinct he couldn't see anything but the edges of things, and none of the content.

                [There comes a day that you r-realize everything you've ever been told was a lie. That day is today. I'm telling you now: Everything you've been told is a lie.

                Welcome... to Night Vale.

                There. I said it. Really, really said it. Wasn't that exhilarating? It was probably more exhilarating for me than for any of you. Okay, it wasn't all that exhilarating for me, either. Honestly I feel awful right now but I wanted to talk to you because I know the only way to get a word in edgewise is to get a w-word in before anyone knows you're talking. Does that make sense? I hope it does.

                Now, you're probably all wondering, who's this new wonderful voice talking to us? No, okay, you're probably not. I sound awful. You're wondering who this awful n-new voice is. Well, I'm Kevin. That's who I am. Kevin. And I'm really not your new radio host but here I am.

                Your old radio host will be back soon enough.

                Now I'm sure you've been hearing all kinds of things these past... I don't really know how long it's been! Time flows differently here. Time is weird, I think we can all agree on that, wouldn't you say so? But it's probably been a while, right? And you've probably got your radio host t-telling you that it's a mystery! We just don't know why these things happen!

                Well, I'm going to be honest with you. Of course we do. Of course we know what's going on, why it's going on, and who's causing it and what's going to happen.]

                He paused a moment, collecting his thoughts, crumpling the papers in his hands. He'd tried to barricade the door to the broadcasting booth as well as he could. It was still early, he'd crept from the break room without waking either Tamika or Roger, and really he'd been looking for a bathroom but he'd found the broadcasting booth and _knew_ he had to go into it.

                Kevin had wanted to give this speech since the first time Night Vale had relocated.

                [The story starts a long, long time ago, and maybe we don't really have time for that. For all of you, the story doesn't start all that long ago at all. Maybe a few months or something, maybe a little longer, you saw how a strange man came to town. And it was really weird! Maybe you're used to seeing a lot of people, maybe n-nobody ever stops by to say hello, but all of a sudden someone was here who was just really different. He had an extra eye and a stupid fashion sense and a voice that people all like for some weird reason or other, and nobody knew who he was or why he was here.

                His name is Cecil. And he's really the one that should be talking on the radio, but I've heard him speak to his listeners what feels like thousands of times and he's n-never actually gone through with this so I wanted to go through with it for him, before anyone started covering up.

                It's his fault that your town is like this, now. Cecil did it all.]

                Kevin flinched as he heard somebody trying the doorknob. A few seconds later, the door was being rattled more viciously, pushed against its barricade; Tamika called in at him. “Kevin, damn it, get out of there!”

                He clutched the microphone and continued, more frantic now.

                [I d-don't know how much I have time to tell you everything so I'm going to make this all quick, because somebody's up— upset with me. Cecil does it everywhere he goes, it's because of the Void, he brings the Void w-with him wherever he goes and it starts to bleed out into everything. I m-mean everything.

                The reason everything's been drawn here and— and everything's gone wrong is because it's all coming out of the Void or it's attracted t-to the Void. It's going to keep c-coming for as long as he stays and—]

                Tamika managed to shake the barricade loose enough to shove the door open. She tried to squeeze in through the crack, yelling, “Put the fucking microphone down!”

                [But nevermind that! You n-need to know! Cecil got rid of the University on p-purpose—he got rid of it on purpose—he d-doesn't like anything that gets in the way of—ack!]

                The chair tipped and fell over backwards as Tamika tried to pull him from it, but he didn't let go of the microphone until she'd pried it from his clammy hands, staring down at him in disappointment.

                Tamika cleared her throat and spoke into the microphone, level and calm, “I'm sorry, it appears we're experiencing some technical difficulties. Some vagrant snuck into the radio station—please join us later for some of our more regularly scheduled programming. Thanks.”

                She turned off the broadcast. Roger was squeezing into the room after her, and he stopped in front of Kevin as he was trying to crawl his way along the floor toward escape. Roger nudged him back with his foot and refused to get out of the way.

                “What the hell do you think you're doing?” Tamika hissed, crouching to grab Kevin by the back of his shirt and tug him away from the door. “Anita let us stay here of her own generosity—you don't get to just go spreading propaganda over her radio station. That's not cool.”

                “I'm not spreading propaganda,” Kevin groaned, letting himself be dragged—it was better, in the moment, than fighting back. He'd already strained himself enough to get to this room in the first place.

                Roger snorted. “Then what the hell were you doing on the radio? Nobody said you could do that. What'd you tell them, Kevin?”

                He said nothing until Tamika shook the answer out of him. “O-o-okay—okay—stop—I said—Night Vale is Cecil's fault!” he snapped, trying now to tug away lest she rattle his brain right out of his head. Tamika dropped him and he flopped onto the floor with a thunk. She straightened up.

                “I know. Night Vale follows him—what do you think we've been doing, forgetting that Night Vale was somewhere else six months ago?” Tamika laughed once, sharply. “Of course Night Vale is following him. What else is new?”

                Kevin sighed and shut his third eye. “He sent all of those students to the desert on purpose,” he added, though that wasn't met with any surprise either. “He's been erasing p-people from existence,” Kevin concluded and lapsed into silence.

                Roger was the one to break the silence, “We were sort of… starting to worry about that,” he admitted. “Tamika asked him—did you ask him? Did I?—well whatever the case, we asked him about the University and he wouldn’t answer.”

“If you two are the only ones who can change things around, and you weren’t even present—of course it had to be him,” Tamika added in agreement. “…I guess it’s still harsh actually hearing it out loud though. Erasing people from existence. Is that what happened?”

“The Masked Army—A-alisha was… my friend, we went to school together,” Kevin answered. “He sent them there and— ...a lot of other people.”

Tamika gave this consideration for a moment. “Couldn’t you get them back? If we’re all back now—we were all there, certainly there’s some course of action to set things straight.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. It’s very—hard, doing anything l-like that, with the Smiling God—” Kevin cut off suddenly, lapsing into a lengthy silence. Because he was laying on the ground, he very well might have fainted again, for all the help that Tamika nudging him with her foot did.

“Kevin?” she asked, rolling him on the floor with her foot. “Are you just going to keep doing this? It’s getting old. I’d like to hold a conversation that doesn’t end in you passing out.”

Roger suggested, nervous, “Do you think it’s the Smiling God? I mean, if he was talking about—”

                “Don’t,” Tamika warned. “The Smiling God is back there—we left it behind. Right? Kevin. Right? The Smiling God is gone?” She shook him more vigorously.

                It seemed to snap him out of whatever stupor he’d fallen into. “H-hey-h-hey—yes. Gone. T-tamika—stop—ah.” He took a moment to regain his bearings once she stopped shaking him. “…it’s gone. I—Cecil didn’t have it either… …did he?”

                “He wasn’t acting like it,” Roger offered.

                “Then it’s gone?” Tamika asked, watching him closely.

                Slowly, a smile broke out onto Kevin’s face, almost like the manic grin he’d worn with the Smiling God watching his every move—but this smile was sincere. “It’s gone. It’s g-gone!” he started laughing. “Gone. The Smiling God is gone!”

                The other two exchanged a look, but didn’t say anything as Kevin’s excited laughter fell away, transforming into wild sobbing. Tamika took a few steps back, staring down at him.

                “I-it’s gone,” he bawled, “It’s f-finally gone—I—I— I’m free.” He buried his face in his hands, all but wailing in a way that must have meant some sort of relief, but sure as hell didn’t look like it.

                Roger mouthed the words “holy shit” in Tamika’s direction and she shushed him, staring down at Kevin and waiting for him to calm down or… something. “Are you uh, okay?” she finally asked.

                “I—” all at once, Kevin remembered he was being watched, and felt his cheeks grow hot with embarrassment. Self-conscious, he wiped at his face, though he hadn’t cried a single tear from the last eye he had left. “Y-yes. I’m—I’m okay.” He hoped he sounded at least somewhat composed, but he was still trying to catch his breath again.

                Tamika waited until he was calm before asking, “So if the Smiling God made it so you can’t fix things… can you fix things now that it’s gone? What about Dana and Megan? I think it did something to them, they vanished, do you think you can—can you get them back?”

He frowned. “I don’t know. It’s never done that t-to anyone…before.”

“Done _what­?_ ” Roger asked.

“Erased them—I mean… f-for real. Nonexistence. The—the great unraveling…” Kevin trailed off as the door to the broadcasting booth was shoved open, easily shoving his already damaged barricade away. Mx. Mitchell appeared in the doorway, Cecil behind them.

“What the _hell_ have you been saying on my radio?” they hissed, looking accusingly from face to face. Tamika and Roger edged further into the room. Almost instinctively, Tamika shoved Kevin back with them. He tried to crawl back further, looking somehow straight at Cecil, as damaged as his remaining vision clearly was.

Tamika tried to explain, “Listen, we’ve been talking to Kevin—Cecil, we know what you did.”

“You would _believe_ the shit he tells you?” Cecil accused, shoving past Mx. Mitchell to advance on the three of them. “He’s—he’s Kevin! You can’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth, it’s all propaganda—it’s all—”

“You tried to kill all those students!” Tamika snapped.

Cecil scowled. “I was possessed by that rotten Smiling God—”

“No, before all that,” Roger interrupted. “You sent the University away on purpose.”

Mx. Mitchell grabbed his shoulder and spun him around to face them. “You did _what_?” They demanded. “You—you sent all those students away on purpose? Is this true, Cecil?”

He shook his head. “It’s not. I wouldn’t! That—that would be horrible! You can’t believe a word that comes out of Kevin’s mouth—he was _born_ lying.”

Still staring up at his brother, Kevin muttered quietly, “You wanted them o-out of the way—for Carlos. Your… n-newest beau, Cecil. Or did you f-forget I’ve seen all that?”

Cecil scowled. “How dare you. After what you did to him!” He made to attack Kevin, only to find that the other three all held him back now—Mx. Mitchell wrapped their arms around his torso while the other two pushed back, placing themselves between him and Kevin.

“I’ve had enough of the fucking violence in my radio station!” Mx. Mitchell snapped. “All of you can get the fuck out! I don’t want to see any of you around here—I don’t care—don’t even start telling me who did fucking what.”

                Roger shut his mouth, as he’d been about ready to start running it.

                “Ever since you came here, there’s been nothing but fucking disaster. People dying—people going missing—all over some stupid fucking _crush_ on some fucking scientist?” They started pulling a stunned Cecil back toward the door. “How fucking selfish can you be?”

                He finally realized what was happening and pulled away, “It—it isn’t a crush! I—I loved Carlos—and Kevin killed him! He killed him!”

                “It was the Smiling God,” Kevin hissed.

                “You can’t just blame the Smiling God for everything!” Cecil argued.

                “I don’t care whose fault it is!” Mx. Mitchell yelled. “I want you out—all of you! Out!”

                Tamika crouched, wrapping her arms up under Kevin’s to pick him up. He struggled to his feet a little better than he had while unconscious, certainly. “Come on,” she whispered. “You can tell us more when we’re out.”

                He nodded and stumbled along with her and Roger, though Cecil now tried to bar their exit. “You don’t get to just leave and—”

                “Yes, in fact, they do,” Mx. Mitchell warned. “You leave too—you can go discuss… whatever the fuck you think you’re discussing—outside. Now. Go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slowly but surely we are spiraling towards a conclusion.
> 
> as always, comments/kudos are loved! c:


	54. Blame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tamika and Roger finally confront Cecil, and where their friendship is going to go. Kevin does nothing to help the situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no warnings, nothing horrible is happening, everything is wonderful :^)

Cecil stumbled out of the new Night Vale Community Radio station after the others, with Mx. Mitchell shoving at his back even as he resisted. “You can’t just kick me out—you need somebody here who knows what they’re reporting about!”

“No, I don’t,” they hissed. “I’ve done fine while you were dicking around in the University _you_ sent away.” Mx. Mitchell gave him one last frustrated shove, out the front door, and slammed it after him. They didn’t bother locking the door or anything but hoped he’d be decent enough to stay out.

Cecil made as if to turn back around, but realized abruptly that while he’d been arguing, the other three had made some headway. He caught up to Roger and Tamika helping a limping Kevin down the sidewalk. They certainly hadn’t been waiting for him to follow.

“I’m not done with you yet,” he called out as he came up behind them, and reached out to pull Kevin out from between the other two.

Tamika caught his hand. “Which one of us? Or haven’t you done enough to all of us?” she demanded, only releasing his hand when she thought he wasn’t going to reach right back out again.

“I haven’t done anything to either of you,” Cecil denied.

“Oh haven’t you? We came here with Megan and with Dana—we were _worried_ for you while you were fooling around in the desert otherworld where _you_ put everyone on purpose!” Tamika straightened up, still shorter than him anyway. “You put us all in danger—some of us you _killed_ , and for what? So you could send away a bunch of innocent people? Why, Cecil? Why the hell would you _do_ that?”

Cecil replied quickly, “It was an accident, Tamika. Surely we’ve all made them—”

Kevin interrupted him, “It’s not an accident when it’s a p-pattern, Ceec. You told me that, too. O-or doesn’t it apply to you?”

“You don’t get to call me that,” he growled.

“I’m your brother. I’ll call y-you whatever I fucking want to—you’re not answering my question.” Kevin tried to stand up straighter, but he couldn’t manage, weighed down by his own wounds and exhaustion. Whatever. Trying to posture was useless, anyway. “Don’t you follow the same standards as—as everyone else? Don’t the r-rules apply?”

He tried to stare Kevin down; a fruitless endeavor against a blind man. “You have a lot of nerve acting as though I’m the one doing wrong.”

"You both fucked up,” Roger grumbled.

Tamika nodded agreement. “What I want to know, Cecil, is _why_ you sent those people away. I mean—I expected better from you. We really all expected better from you—not Kevin. We’re not talking about Kevin. We’re talking about you. He’s already aware what _he’s_ done wrong.”

Hesitantly, he tried once again, “It was an accident.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Tamika insisted. “If it were an accident, you wouldn’t have been able to bring us all back so intentionally, either.”

He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again. Cecil had to break eye contact before he could answer, “They were in the way—I wasn’t thinking, and it was wrong, and I apologize.”

“H-how sweet, did you rehearse that last night, Cecil?” Kevin jeered.

Tamika sighed. “Kevin, don’t. You’re not really in a position to judge.”

“He’s not,” Cecil agreed, smugly.

She rolled her eyes. “Neither are you. They were _in the way_? In the way of _what_?”

Kevin whispered to her, “His scientist beau.”

Cecil scowled, watching them. “What the hell did he say?”

“Nothing. Cecil, did you…get rid of them because of Carlos? Is that why you did it?” she asked, staring him down as he struggled to think of an answer.

Finally, Cecil conceded with a small nod. “…they were telling him—…they wanted him to stay away. From me. I had to get him alone, to talk to him before they got to! You—you understand, right?” He watched his friends for some form of agreement on their faces. Roger was staring at the ground. Tamika shook her head.

“Gee, sounds a little manipulative, Ceec,” Kevin jeered.

“Coming from the master, huh _Kev_?” he growled.

Roger snorted. “Are you children? I thought you two were the _older_ ones here.” He crossed his arms, he still refused to actually look up as he talked. “What about the times people vanished before, Cecil? Did you do all that too? Who was ­ _that_ for?”

He shook his head quickly. “It’s not all like that. Sometimes it’s just… it just happens. It comes from the Void—or from… whatever else follows here. I don’t cause everything.” Cecil paused. “At least not directly.”

“That’s really reassuring,” Tamika droned. “All the same—look, Cecil, you’ve done enough harm. Here. Everywhere. I think… maybe you need to leave.”

Cecil sank. “What?”

“Before you find someone else to go wiping out entire schools full of people for.” Tamika wouldn’t look at him.

“You—you can’t just send me away,” Cecil argued. “I thought we were friends—”

Tamika interrupted him sharply. “Don’t you think I—we—thought that too? What about Dana? What about Megan? Hell, what about Carlos? What about all those other people who your actions got _killed_? Do you think you can just get away with everything?”

Cecil stared at her, saying nothing for a length of time, until he noticed the smug look on Kevin’s face. Kevin was still held upright between the two of them, and now looking way too pleased.

“What about him?” Cecil asked. “Does he get away with everything?”

Kevin scowled, knowing full well what Cecil was trying to do. “We’re not talking a-about me,” he reminded.

“He’s wounded,” Tamika replied. “That—Cecil, let me speak. That doesn’t mean everything is forgiven, either. But you’re not wounded. It’s not the same situation.” She shrugged, and readjusted Kevin’s arm over her shoulders. “I wouldn't feel right sending him out before he’s healed.”

The smirk that had been growing on his face fell away again. Kevin sputtered for words, “B-before I—you’re sending me away too? I’m blind! That’s not going to heal!”

“You look like you’re getting around well enough to me,” she grumbled. “You’ve still got one eye left—”

“It can only see shapes,” Kevin complained. “I can’t see anything up close—”

“Then I guess you’re going to have to listen to audio books.” Somehow, that line sounded final, as if she’d ended the argument with it. Kevin didn’t challenge it.

Cecil watched the three of them, trying to look for some hint of support, understanding, pity—anything on their faces that didn’t just say that they were done. Roger wouldn’t look at him; he tried talking to him and hoped. “Maybe I can set things straight still. I mean—we can. There has to be some way, somehow.”

Roger grimaced. “What? What way? All our bloodstones are gone. Even if we could’ve done something, it’s all fucked up, now.” He continued not to look at Cecil.

“We can always get more,” Cecil insisted. “It just takes… a process. We need new ones anyway, so—”

“And then what?” Tamika challenged. “You get them, you start using them to send people away again? Get bored of trying to convince us you’re the good guy and go back to doing whatever you want?” She readjusted her grip on Kevin. “I don’t want to see either of you with bloodstones again.”

Kevin quietly nodded, muttering, “I th-think I’m okay with that.”

“ _Why_ are you okay with it?” Cecil snapped. “Talk about pretending to be the good guy.”

He scowled. “Stop making up what’s in my head, Ceec. I’m not pretending anything. I’m tired. I w-want to be done with it. _I_ never had fun with all that shit. Sitting stuck in the desert while you ran around w-willy nilly acting like you owned the world. M-maybe you’ll miss it—I won’t!”

"Don’t blame me for the desert. You were there because you were _dangerous_ —as far as I’m concerned, you still are.” Cecil glared at him. Again, it was pretty pointless, as Kevin couldn’t see.

“You didn’t have to trap me there, Ceec. I w-wasn’t that bad. Not when it first started.” He tried to stand up straighter again, and Roger helped him do so. Tamika and Roger exchanged a look but stayed out of the conversation, waiting to see it pan out.

Cecil scoffed. “And look what it turned into, what, you wanted me to let you stay with everyone? You’re a murderer! And that Smiling God only made it _worse_.”

“M-maybe you could have helped me,” he argued. “I was fighting it! You didn’t see yourself when it had you—it—it makes everything different. And I never hurt anyone b-before it. So stop.”

Shaking his head, Cecil answered, “You were always hurting people. Or—what was it you said? Don’t you think the rules apply to you? Last I checked all you’ve ever _done_ was hurt people—your friends. Your… ugh… partners. Or whatever they were. And mom—you’re the reason—”

“Don’t blame me for that!” Kevin interrupted. “She was sick! She w-was old! She got crushed b-by falling livestock! Get a new fucking refrain you sound like a broken record Cecil!”

“It was your fault she was out there! If she hadn’t been picking you up from—”

Tamika interrupted, losing her patience. “Is this going anywhere? I kind of thought this was going somewhere so I was gonna let you guys talk but I’m seriously not standing here for bickering.”

Cecil watched her a moment, and then looked away. “We can still figure this out. It doesn’t have to be like this, Tamika. We can still be friends and—”

“Just stop. Just. Cecil. Please, do me a favor, if you want so badly to make things better. Go somewhere you can’t hurt anyone.” Tamika sighed.

His voice broke as he answered, “But I can _help_ people here, Tamika. There has to be a—”

“Go. We aren’t friends anymore, Cecil.”

She gestured to Roger and the two of them tried to turn away, pulling Kevin with them. Tamika moved quickly, hoping that the quicker they moved away, the less likely Cecil was going to try to retaliate. But he didn’t. He didn’t retaliate at all.

Instead, he just quietly watched them leave.

As they made their way down the sidewalk, Roger finally broke the silence that had fell upon the three of them. “So… where do we stay now? We kinda got kicked out.”

“Splurge on a hotel or something,” Tamika grumbled. “At least til we can figure out something more permanent. You still have a wallet on you?”

Roger shook his head. Tamika grimaced, looking up at Kevin instead.

“I suppose it’s too much to ask to assume that you even own a wallet.”

“Not for a long time,” he agreed. “Just let me talk to the receptionist, I’m sure we can get a night or two, f-free of charge.”

Tamika cringed. “No. We’re not tricking someone into letting us stay there.”

“You wouldn’t be tricking anyone,” Kevin reassured.

“You’re not tricking anyone either,” she huffed, and the conversation fell off again. Kevin readjusted himself against her shoulder, trying not to weigh down too heavily against either of his helpers, and stay balanced. Their different heights hardly helped the situation, he kept leaning further on Tamika because she was shorter.

Roger offered a suggestion, “How about the people from the University? We can ask someone there if we can stay for a night or two. At least until we figure out something.”

“Not if we’ve got Kevin with us. Even if they said yes I don’t think it’s right to make anyone have to offer hospitality after everything that happened.”

Kevin frowned. “Well if I’m such a p-problem just leave me somewhere.”

“Oh, shut up,” Tamika snapped. He shut up.

A pause followed. Roger suggested, “Homeless shelter?”

“That might work.”

Again, the three of them lapsed into silence. Tamika slowly stopped walking, since they weren’t really going anywhere, anyway. It seemed pointless to keep pressing onward.

Kevin separated from the other two, making his way over to the nearest bench and practically falling onto it with a quiet groan. He didn’t bother sitting up, just laid out and occupied the entire bench. Tamika sat on his feet until he moved them.

“What even happens now? Do we just like… go home?” Roger asked, watching the two of them, hoping for some great, wise answer.

Tamika shook her head. “It wouldn’t be the same, anyway. I mean—you can go home if you want to. I don’t think I’m going to.” She wouldn’t make eye contact, staring at her hands.

Pushing Kevin aside, Roger sat between the two of them. He leaned against Tamika, and she leaned back, resting her head on his shoulder. “You shouldn’t just run off,” he muttered quietly, just to her. “I mean, I can stay with you, I don’t want you alone. I… don’t really want to be alone either.”

Kevin sat back up, leaning away from both of them, trying to ignore their hushed whispers to one another. He damn well knew they were planning what to do with him, or something, or at least that’s what it sounded like to him.

“Your dad’s going to worry about you,” Tamika whispered, but didn’t try to pull away or anything. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I mean, we don’t have any money or ID or anything.”

He forced out a faltering laugh. “So? We’ve dealt with worse. Find something somewhere, start fresh…” But Roger’s fake laughter only went so far. “…Maybe it would’ve been better if we never came.”

“I guess it probably would have,” Tamika agreed quietly. “…I mean, no. Maybe not. That’s selfish, isn’t it? For Megan and Dana… there are a lot of other people who didn’t want to die either.”

“Well it’s not your job to martyr yourself,” Roger insisted.

She retorted, “Not yours either.”

“What the hell are we going to do?” he asked. Tamika slipped one of her hands into his, and he ran his fingers over her knuckles and traced patterns in her palm. They didn’t say anything else, then. She hardly knew the answer to the question, and he certainly didn’t know it either.

When Kevin fell against Roger’s side and leaned there, exhausted, nobody stopped him.

“We need someplace we can go,” Tamika repeated.

Roger dared to ask: “Doesn’t Cecil have an apartment?”

The two exchanged a look, and then looked away.

 

 

Nonexistence, Carlos decided, was a drag.

It hadn't felt like anything, and it still didn't, but that was the thing: it felt like nothing. Absolute nothing. Nothingness, with consciousness. If he could try to look in a different direction, he would have. If there'd been anything to look at, or he had a head to turn.

The last thing he remembered before there was nothing—and this could have been a century ago already—was wondering if he was supposed to care about nothing. A bigger nothing than Cecil could have ever described with his own convoluted nothingness.

Vaguely, he wanted to see Cecil again. Whatever part of him could still think of wanting anything, or doing anything.

Was this what death was like?

If so, it was fairly anticlimactic.

Carlos could remember vividly the reactions after he'd come out to his family, and all the places they said he'd go when he died. His mother seemed most sympathetic, but the family was big and his grandfather was outspoken and Carlos was going to burn in hell—in a dress—for all eternity. Just to hammer home a point or something.

The boyfriend's hand he was holding when he came out was a distant flicker of information now, but they'd run away together once. Carlos found himself dragged back home by police. A missing person, they could legally report him a missing person—he hadn't thought they'd report him a missing person.

He hadn't thought they even wanted him back, they only wanted him back to correct him. Nobody actually wanted him back, it echoed through nothing: nobody actually wanted him back.

Nobody actually wanted him back.

_There was nothing to fear more than that, if there was anything left to fear anymore._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the long pause between chapters, I graduate in under a month and everything has basically gone completely nuts lately. No idea when next update will be, could be in a few days, could be a few weeks.
> 
> but the show must go on!
> 
> thanks, as always, for reading. <3


	55. A Place to Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil returns to find that his apartment is exactly as he left it. Soon after, company comes over.

Cecil wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting when he returned to his apartment. At least he didn’t find all of his stuff out on the sidewalk, guess his rent had lasted long enough. But he hadn’t stepped in to find Carlos waiting for him, he hadn’t laid down in bed to wake up from a terrible dream. In fact, it felt like everything was finally, horribly, irrevocably real.

After picking the lock to his apartment, he closed the door behind him. Cecil didn't have any keys, any phone, any wallet to set on the kitchen table as he wandered in, but he went to grab a glass of water. If the desert had left any lasting impression, he couldn't stop looking for a drink.

He downed a glass of water, went for a second, and made his way back to his bedroom to get changed into something cleaner. After all of the bloodshed, his own and everyone else's, Cecil had to peel himself out of his clothing. He'd almost gotten used to being covered in blood.

Was that how Kevin felt? He cleared the thought and wandered to his bathroom to wash himself clean, then halted in the doorway.

Carlos’ ink-stained binder was still in the sink, he must have been soaking it, they must have forgotten it, it was growing an ecosystem of mold. Cecil stared into the sink as the murky water drained, and wondered at how everything had just stayed untouched. A novelty t-shirt draped over the counter exclaimed, “I make bad science puns periodically.”

Gingerly, he picked up the shirt and lifted it up to inhale, it still smelled like Carlos, he thought. He only thought? Had he already forgotten what Carlos smelled like?

Was he going to forget his beautiful voice, next? His perfect hair?

Cecil laid the shirt back down where it had been laying, and made his way into the shower, where the water wasn't hot enough to burn away the aches in his bones. All at once, it was like he'd never sat down a day in his life, never rested. The numbness wore off, and he sat in the shower until the water ran cold and he went numb all over again. But he still could feel the absence.

Carlos, perfect Carlos, barely even new into his life, and already gone.

He dried himself and pulled on the t-shirt, and ten minutes later he was curled up in the couch in boxers and Carlos' shirt, nursing a can of beer.

(There had been nothing suitable to eat, at least nothing that didn't require preparing. Everything in the fridge was spoiled, he didn't feel like making anything else.)

A knock at the door snapped him out of his stupor and he dropped his pen, glancing down at his Little Reporter's Book. Had he been writing in that? His thoughts, narrated onto paper, didn't sound as pretty or eloquent as they did in his head.

Cecil set his drink down and got up, hoping it would be Carlos on the other side of the door. Carlos, who'd just gone out to get milk and come back. Carlos, returning after a day of teaching at the totally-not-ruined University. Carlos, love of his life.

But at the same time, he wasn't surprised to see that Tamika and Roger and Kevin had found him, because who else would have even looked for him? Mx. Mitchell? They didn't want him around—well, the others hadn't wanted him around, either.

“I... thought we weren't friends anymore,” he remarked, looking them over. Kevin, practically asleep on his feet, hung forward as they gripped his arms to balance him.

Tamika grimaced. “We... ...kind of don't have our wallets. Or any money. And we've tried about twenty apartments looking for you. The old woman at the last one fainted and we thought she'd dropped dead, but I think she was only squeamish of all the blood.” She gestured to Kevin, the worst of the three no doubt, but all three were looking much shabbier than Cecil now did.

“So you...” Cecil began, waving his hands to prompt an answer.

“We... need someplace to stay, at least for now.” Tamika sighed. “For your brother, especially. Honestly Roger and I could just walk somewhere probably.” She emphasized the word _brother_ , hoping Cecil cared enough that maybe he'd—

“Oh, sure. Come on in, then,” he muttered, stepping aside to wave the three of them in. Tamika entered first, dragging Kevin, and followed by Roger. Cecil shut the door behind them all.

He watched as Tamika and Roger dragged Kevin over to the couch and laid him down—he was basically out the moment he wasn't on his feet anymore. Cecil watched him for several moments longer and then looked at Tamika hopefully. “So does this mean we're friends again?”

She hesitated, torn between whether to lie to keep a roof over her head, or to tell him the truth. She settled on, “We'll see. We're still upset with you, Cecil.”

“Oh. Well.” He'd hoped, but what had he been hoping for? They just wanted him for a place to stay. Roger vanished into the back of the apartment in search of the bathroom, after a moment.

Cecil offered to make them something to eat, now refusing to look at anyone at all.

Tamika accepted the offer. It _had_ been a while since she'd had anything to eat, and she imagined that Roger was probably just as hungry. She didn't follow Cecil into the kitchen when he went to make...what was it, probably lunch time by now?

The refrigerator reeked upon opening, and Cecil grabbed a few more drinks—the last bit of anything that was still good in there, it seemed like—and shut the door again. Well, that much he had plenty of, and they could all drink and never really forget enough anyway.

Coming up with actual food was harder. Any pre-packaged meals in the cabinet were still good, but most had at least a thirty minute cook time. He eventually sided on some jambalaya rice mix that didn't seem too offensive on its own, and set up a pot of water to boil.

Roger and Tamika were talking out in the living room, he could hear that much. What they were talking about, he could somewhat imagine, and wasn't sure he liked to imagine very much. Cecil left the kitchen to hover in the doorway and watch the two until Roger noticed him first.

“You, uh... you need something?” he asked, eyeing Cecil uncertainly. They'd both taken up residence in Cecil's armchair, since Kevin was sprawled out on the couch, and it wasn't really big enough for the two of them. Roger was more of sitting on the arm rest and a bit on Tamika's lap.

“No, I. It's fine. What are you two talking about?” Cecil asked.

Roger hesitated, and Tamika answered in his stead. “Whether we're going to be able to get the funds to get back home. You've got a phone here, right? Roger figures if he gave his father a call, he might be happy to help us get back.”

Cecil brightened. “Earl? Oh, I haven't seen Earl in _ages_ , it feels like.”

“Don't, Cecil,” Roger grumbled. “Look, can I use your phone? We'll get out of your hair if we can get a ride back.”

He nodded and led Roger into the kitchen. “I think there's a landline in here. I haven't used it. I was using my cellphone.” Cecil dug out a rotary phone he found stuffed into one of the cabinets, and set it on the kitchen table while he scouted for the wall jack.

Roger examined the phone disinterestedly. “Do you even know if this thing works? It looks older than me.” In fact he was sure it was older than him, any phone he'd ever used had proper buttons.

“If it doesn't work then I don't have a working phone,” Cecil replied. “I think I lost my cellphone in the desert otherworld.”

“I think we all lost a lot of shit,” Roger agreed dismally. “I can’t find my wallet, my phone, none of it. Which is… weird because I don’t actually…remember taking any of it out that I’d have had the chance to lose it anyway?”

Cecil shrugged. “I can’t account for everything I was doing, so I suppose it would be wrong for me to expect that I could remember where I put everything.”

Once he finally located the wall jack, Cecil plugged in the old rotary phone and gestured Roger over to it. “Give it a shot. If it works… well, hopefully it works, right?”

With some difficulty, Roger sorted out how to work the dial on the phone and call back home, only to find that he couldn’t make the call, anyway. He looked up from the dead receiver after a moment. “Cecil, do you even have phone service?”

“Do I… need that separately? Is that how that works?” Cecil asked hesitantly. Roger hung up the dead phone with a sigh and told him to forget about it.

He marched back out to the living room. Cecil stayed in the kitchen to tend to his idea of lunch, which now consisted of pouring jambalaya flavoring and brown rice into a boiling pot of water to hope for the best. He figured he saw some meal moths in the mix, but it didn’t matter. Extra protein, or something.

Out in the living room, Roger sunk into the armchair, squeezed in tight next to Tamika. “I think he’s fucking with me,” he grumbled. “I honestly think he’s fucking with me, he can’t even work the damn phone.”

Tamika sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s really just that… disconnected.”

“No, he’s fucking with us all.” Roger buried his face in his hands. “Honestly I just want to go home.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Tamika insisted, pulling his hands down from his face and squeezing both of them. “We’ve survived worse.”

When Cecil resurfaced from the kitchen, he was balancing three bowls of rice in his hands as he made his way over. He carefully set each bowl down in turn on the coffee table; one for him, one for Roger, one for Tamika. Kevin, still passed out on the couch, wasn’t included.

It took Cecil a moment to decide to sit on the floor, across from them all. Tamika picked up her bowl of rice first and dug in. It wasn’t exactly cooked all the way, but it was edible and that was all that particularly counted. Cecil was eating his, unconcerned with his lackluster cooking. He just didn’t have the energy to bother with anything better right now.

Roger broke the silence between them all. “So like, when I went in the bathroom before. What’s with the shirt in the sink? It’s kind of nasty.”

Cecil froze. “Th-that was uh. That was. Carlos left that here. I think we... forgot to drain the water when we left.”

“Oh, I'm... sorry to hear that?” Roger replied awkwardly, and quickly busied himself with eating again so he wouldn't have to worry about talking.

Cecil stared blankly at his spoonful of rice, listening to the clink of metal against glass as the other two kept eating. If Carlos was here, maybe they'd have had a nice dinner to celebrate coming home. He couldn't even remember if that was accurate, or he was just filling in what he thought they'd be doing.

He finally set his spoon back in the bowl, without bothering to eat another mouthful of rice. Instead, Cecil excused himself to the kitchen, and came back with the drinks he'd forgotten to bring the first time around.

As he set one in front of both Roger and Tamika, he half hoped they'd turn him down and leave him to drink everything. Then maybe he'd forget.

Roger grabbed his can first and cracked it open to take a sip while Tamika finished eating her rice. “This stuff tastes awful, is this expired or something?” he complained.

Cecil, already nursing his drink, shook his head. “It's just cheap.”

“Count me out then,” Tamika replied, setting down her empty bowl. “I'll just have a water if I can't have something good.” She got up, making her way to the kitchen. Cecil called out for her to check the upper cabinets and not to open the fridge.

Roger raised an eyebrow. “Don't open the fridge?”

“Something in there might be sentient,” Cecil replied flatly, and despite himself, Roger let out a laugh. The two of them made no eye contact, and Cecil tried to act nonchalant as he slid Tamika's refused can of beer closer to himself. Roger didn't comment on it.

Tamika wandered back in with a mug of tapwater and stood near one end of the coffee table, looming over the others as they looked over at her. She passed the mug to her other hand and wiped water on her dirty pantleg.

“I'm gonna need to use your shower. Probably borrow something to wear,” she remarked offhandedly, then switched quickly. “Listen, Cecil, if we left and went home would you deal with Kevin or are we going to have to drag him with? He's kind of a dead weight.”

Cecil frowned down at his hands. “You can use the shower if you want,” he replied.

“Yeah, thanks. What about Kevin?” she insisted.

“I suppose he can use the shower too if he wants to,” Cecil added.

Tamika rolled her eyes. “You know that's not what I meant.”

Cecil offered her no other answer, and focused instead on his drinking and hopefully, the forgetting part that would inevitably come with. Tamika eventually gave up with a sigh, announced she was going to take a shower, and headed into the back of the apartment to do so.

Roger and Cecil didn't look at each other, and the only sounds in the apartment were the water running, Kevin's ragged breathing, and then Cecil got up to get another drink when his were already empty. He called back from the kitchen: did Roger want another?

After a moment, Roger replied, “Sure.”

So they sat in silence and tried to forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i now officially have a degree, go me. been working pretty heavily since grad, but hopefully things will be cooling down now and i'll finally get this story finished. there isn't too much left to it. (i always say that and there always seems to be a lot left.)
> 
> as always, thanks for reading! <3


	56. Thoughtful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin finally seems to have a quiet moment, for however long that ever lasts.

            Kevin woke up and it was dark. Wait. He opened his third eye. Okay, it actually _was_ dark, not just blind. How he still hadn't gotten used to that, he wasn't really sure.

            Vaguely, he remembered making his way toward Cecil's apartment, dizzy and sleep-deprived. He couldn't remember how many apartments they'd tried to check, or how many people had reacted to his blood and gore. Tamika and Roger must have gotten him to the proper place, eventually, but he couldn't remember that part.

            They were still there with him, a pair of indistinct lumps curled up on the floor in a wad of blankets Cecil must have let them use. So they'd let him have the couch.

            Damn, he was sort of flattered.

            Gingerly, Kevin pushed himself to his feet, navigating as well as he could with the indistinct visuals his third eye offered him. Really, it was much better at looking into people than looking at inanimate objects. He managed to make his way toward where he imagined the kitchen might be, slowly, carefully, and only smacking into the wall once.

            Thankful that his guess was right, Kevin stumbled over to the sink and grabbed whatever cup was sitting in it. If someone had used it, it didn't matter much. He rinsed the glass and made use of it, not knowing where the others might be hiding, not caring about anything other than getting a fucking drink.

            God, how long had it been? He'd been stuck in that fucking desert.

            And now he wasn't.

            Kevin cracked a smile, pausing to catch his breath between glasses of water. The tap water flowed cold over his hands as he sloppily refilled, and drained, and refilled his glass.

            Shit, free-flowing water. What he would have done for that in the desert.

            Before long, he was trying to rinse his arms in the sink, examining his missing pinky and other wounds that thankfully weren't bleeding anymore. Mostly, he could tell the state he was in by touch. It wasn't much different, he hadn't seen a mirror in years, but he wondered if he was even washing any blood off himself, or just smearing it in.

            He barely noticed as the lights turned on in the kitchen, just the faintest adjustment to his barely functioning visuals. Kevin stopped what he was doing and turned around, dripping bloody water onto the floor.

            “What the hell are you doing?” It was Cecil's voice; of course Cecil was the one that was up. Cecil never had kept reasonable bedtime hours, even as kids.

            Kevin looked down at himself, at least as well as he could see himself. “...washing the blood off.”

            Cecil didn't reply, but moved closer and Kevin instinctively took a step back, hitting against the counter and the still-running sink. But Cecil didn't lay hands on him, he reached around him and shut off the sink. “Use the shower. You're getting blood everywhere.”

            “Not like I can see what I'm doing,” Kevin replied flatly. “Or where the—”

            “Oh for fuck's sake, I'll show you.”

            He flinched as Cecil's hand closed around his wrist, but followed after his brother into the darker part of the apartment, place where he still hadn't bothered to turn on the light. Maybe Cecil didn't care to see anything, either. He probably wasn't trying to be considerate or anything.

            The floor turned from wood to tile as they entered the bathroom, and he left Kevin standing there and closed the door. Well. It was close enough. Kevin felt along the wall until he found the light switch, and it gave him just the least bit of help finding his way to the shower.

            Kevin cringed at the feeling of dried bloody clothes peeling off his skin, in some cases tearing at wounds that had maybe only freshly healed. Crap. That wasn't going to be any good, but what else could he do? He left his bloody clothes in a pile on the floor and, shaking, climbed into the shower to rinse off years of blood and sand. Kevin ran the water cold and stood until he had to sit, and used up half of Cecil's shampoo hoping that he washed his hair clean.

            He couldn't tell what was or wasn't washing down the drain anymore.

            The bathroom door opened and he flinched and looked toward the sound, but couldn't see anything through the shower curtain. Oh, well, that wasn't a blindness thing that was just obvious.

            “I'm leaving you something to wear,” Cecil remarked. “I think we're still the same size.”

            (They probably weren't the same size, they were probably the same height, but Kevin knew he was bad, gaunt at best, skin and bones at worst, he felt like rehydrated leather).

            Kevin hesitated. “Thank you...?”

            He waited for the sound of Cecil leaving, but only heard the sound of the water continuing to run. He waited a little longer, then spoke, “...are you still...”

            “Yeah,” Cecil replied. “You aren't still bleeding are you? It's. Kind of everywhere.”

            Kevin grimaced. Was that concern? “I think I'm fresh out but thanks for asking.” Weird time for Cecil to start giving a shit.

            “Alright. Good. It won't get all over then.”

            Kevin sighed. “Can we postpone whatever awkward conversation you're trying to have with me until I get out of the shower, Ceec?”

            Finally, Cecil left the bathroom.

            After finally deciding he was as clean as he was going to be, Kevin regretted not asking where the towels were. Fuck. He turned off the shower and groped around until he found a towel neatly folded on top of what was probably the stack of clean clothes. How oddly thoughtful.

            Drying off meant wincing every time he rubbed the towel too hard over any bruises, any cuts, and getting dressed was a similar ordeal of delicate movements. He stopped after pants, leaving Cecil's shirt on the floor as he stumbled toward the door. He wouldn't wear anything more than he had to, it was just going to rub.

            The bathroom opened into Cecil's bedroom, and he was quickly accosted before he could try to slink on by. Of course. Cecil could see what the fuck was going on, Kevin couldn't.

            Cecil led him over to sit on his bed, and sat down next to him in silence for several long moments. Kevin almost broke the silence first, but Cecil finally came through. “You brought Earl back.”

            “I... what?” Kevin frowned, trying to register where that comment was coming from.

            “After he died. You brought Earl back, didn't you? And the Smiling God killed him, too,” Cecil explained. “I didn't bring him back. It had to have been you.”

            Kevin wrung his hands on the edge of the fitted sheet, tugging at the loose fabric. “I suppose I did. It must have been me, mustn't it?”

            “Okay. How?” Cecil asked.

            Of course that was the direction this was going in. Kevin sighed, “I suppose the same as you've ever brought anybody back. Unintentionally.” He paused. “I just... wanted him back.”

            “But that's not _working_ , or Carlos would be _back_ , you know he would,” Cecil argued. “I can't just— _want_ him into existence. There must be something else.”

            Before Kevin could even get a word out, Cecil added, “You do owe me, Kevin. You've done a lot of damage. The way I see it, the least you can do is—”

            “No,” Kevin replied sharply. “No. No, no, no.” He waited for Cecil to start to talk, just so he could talk over him and continue. “No no no no no.”

            Once he'd finally stopped, Cecil tried to talk again. “Do you want him dead that badly?”

            “No!” Kevin snapped. “If anybody was kind to me while you were _mutilating_ me, it was Carlos. But I'm—I don't owe you. I don't owe you anything.” He got up off Cecil's bed, but Cecil grabbed his arm and tugged him back down.

            “It's your fault this all happened,” Cecil growled.

            “And how? I forgot the part where I sent the University to the desert, please remind me,” Kevin answered, voice dripping with venom. “There are holes in my memory. Where the knife went, you know. I mean it's healing but. Remind me, I must have also forgotten how I violently unleashed the great unraveling on everyone and just let it run its course. Excuse me for not helping with—”

            Blind as he was, he didn't see Cecil's fist coming until it collided with his face. Kevin lost footing and fell to the floor with a loud thunk. Cecil crouched by the crumpled heap that was his brother, taking hold of Kevin's shoulders as if he could even get a blind man to look at him.

            “Don't you fucking blame this on me,” he snapped. “And you're not innocent.”

            Kevin said nothing. After a few moments of laying there unresponsive, he kneed Cecil in the groin. While Cecil grabbed his crotch, Kevin scooted away, rubbing his face.

            “Th-that was a cheap shot!” Cecil accused.

            “Well f-forgive a blind man!” Kevin retorted. “Or should I j-just take it, huh Cecil? That's what you all w-want from me! Dump me wherever's convenient when you're done using me.”

            Cecil sat back up, shooting a dirty look at him. “You don't deserve anything better.”

            He scowled. “And why not? Haven't I f-fucking helped get everyone home safe? Haven't I done anyone any favors? I-I know. I fucked up. I _know_ , Ceec.” Kevin's harsh expression fell away into just a tired frown. “I wanted to try and make things better.”

            “And how do you suppose you're making anything better? You can't even bring back Carlos,” Cecil accused. “How is that better?”

            Kevin gestured in what he thought was the direction of the living room; it was, in fact, the direction of a wall. “Your f-friends out there! They'd be dead too. Maybe not everyone's okay but _they're_ there. I-isn't that good? Isn't that _better_?”

            “No, it's not!” Cecil cried. “What good is it if Carlos is gone? Where am I without his—”

            “Exactly where you've always been,” Kevin grumbled. “Acting just like you always do. Look. Losing your boyfriend isn't the end of the world. I can't believe I'm trying to be reasonable here Ceec. Or aren't I supposed to be the unreasonable one?”

            Cecil scowled. “Is everything a comparison for you?”

            “I don't know, tell bad brother Kev if he's comparing too much.” He hugged his knees to his chest. “I'm sure it just makes you look better.”

            Silence fell over the bedroom. Kevin sat near one end of the bed, knees tucked under his chin, eye hollows looking at nothing. Opposite him, Cecil refused to look anywhere near him, staring instead at the floor. There were spots of blood through most of the path he'd walked earlier, when his arms were still dripping with watered down blood from playing in the sink.

            He'd given up hope on getting back any kind of deposit on this apartment. Blood stains were notoriously difficult to get out, and honestly, he really wasn't trying. Why bother?

            At length, Tamika appeared in the doorway, squinting into the light—the living room was still dark, though Cecil had been sitting with his lights on for a while now. “What are you two doing in here...?” she asked.

            “I w-was just going to go to bed,” Kevin replied tersely, and tried to get up. Tamika made her way over to help him to his feet, glad that he finally wasn't a bloody mess. If he hadn't been shirtless, she could have pretended he wasn't mutilated—as it was, his chest was a mess, scarred heavily where the scientists had tried to patch it shut again, but covered also with stab wounds. Nail holes. She tried to look at his face instead.

            Two of his eyes were ruined, torn from their sockets, but his third eye glistened with tears. Tamika screwed up her face. That was right, they could cry from that eye too, right? She steadied him on his feet. Was she supposed to ask about it? Wasn't she?

            How much of what she'd heard was she supposed to admit to hearing?

            “Come on. Let's get to bed then,” Tamika muttered, glad that Kevin was doing a better job at staying on his feet now. Honestly, she was nothing if not impressed by how quickly either one of them seemed to heal from pretty much anything. Maybe he would be able to go off on his own soon enough.

            For now, they left Cecil staring after them, and wandered back into the dark of the living room. Tamika helped him back onto the couch, which was something of a mess of dried blood after he'd been sleeping on it before, but it was better than laying on the ground.

            Roger's voice came through the darkness, “S'everything okay?” he asked.

            “Yeah it's fine,” Tamika replied, turning to make her way back over. Kevin grabbed her wrist and she jolted, surprised, and turned back to face him.

            His voice sounded so quiet and tired, “Would it be better if I just left?”

            “…get some sleep,” she answered.

            Kevin tried again, a little quieter still, “I think maybe I should go.”

            “It’s the middle of the night. Let’s argue tomorrow.”

            He released Tamika’s wrist and she made her way back over to where Roger lay, and sat down next to him. Neither said a word to the other, she wasn’t even sure that Roger hadn’t fallen asleep already. Tamika laid down, closed her eyes, and waited to fall back asleep.

            Quiet sniffling from Kevin’s direction broke through the quiet of the room. She let out a groan. “Kevin. Go to sleep. Nobody said you have to leave.”

            “You’re lying,” he whimpered.

            Tamika was silent, after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoosh. workin through some shit. will this be the start of a more frequent update schedule? maybe. we'll see.
> 
> as always, thanks for reading!


	57. Heart to Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tamika decides it's time for everyone to talk some things out, but the discussion leads to a more disturbing realization.

“Okay, look. We’re all adults in this apartment. Surely we can talk like adults.”

After having to listen to Kevin blubbering half the night away, crying that his own brother wanted him dead, Tamika had tried to stage an intervention. Really she’d tried.

She’d gotten as far as getting both Cecil and Kevin in the kitchen together, and then nothing else had particularly come of it. Roger hovered in the doorway, as if he could stop either of them if they honestly didn’t want him to stop them.

Instead, they sat in silence. Kevin, hunched over, picked at his nails. Cecil stared into a cup of coffee and said nothing. And Tamika was getting a bit tired of the whole game.

“You know both of us probably have much more reason to be furious with both of you than either of you do with each other,” Tamika remarked. “Or do you have something to add that might be actually insightful? Honestly, at this point, I don't know if a place to stay the night is worth it.”

Cecil finally spoke, “Then leave if you're so furious.”

Tamika pursed her lips, watching them. “Do you look at yourself sometimes and ask, 'How did this happen? How am I ageless and probably all-powerful and still act like a five-year-old throwing a tantrum? Why have I never learned?'”

Kevin bit back a smile, and she added, “You're no better.”

His smile fell away, always tugged up at the corners by the scars on his face anyway.

“So the answer is, sorry Tamika, you're right, now we're going to stop acting like five-year-olds and talk,” she continued. “Or honestly, Roger and I are better off leaving you two to tear each other to bits or whatever you're planning.”

If she couldn't get a response normally, she'd be quite happy to goad one of them and at least finally break the silence. “You know, Cecil, I couldn't help but hear that you wanted to kill Kevin? Would you just like us to leave you to it?”

Cecil scowled. “He's lying. I said nothing of the sort.”

Tamika scoffed. “Oh, so you _don't_ want each other dead. Okay, then. Let's make up, then. Make friendly.”

“He only doesn't want me dead because he thinks I can bring Carlos back,” Kevin grumbled.

“And can you?” Tamika asked.

“No.”

“He's lying,” Cecil insisted. “He's brought back people that were killed by the Smiling God before. Earl was alright!” He looked over to Roger for help on this. “Your father is just fine, isn't he? The Smiling God—”

Kevin interrupted him. “That wasn't the Smiling God. I mean. It was but it wasn't. That was _you_ with the Smiling God controlling you. It's not the same. Earl wasn't... he didn't stop _existing_. He just. Died. It's different.”

Roger looked away uncomfortably.

“How different can it even be?” Cecil argued, scowling. “It's like somebody wandering into the Void. They don't _really_ not exist. The Smiling God can't just. Un-exist people.” He paused. That wasn't a word at all. “...anyway, it can't.”

That got a snort from Kevin and he answered, “How about instead of telling me what the Smiling God can do, you imagine that I might in fact know a bit more about it? Having lived with it for all this time after all. And fear of the Great Unraveling all this time. It's not like the Void, not really.”

Cecil retorted, “And what do you know about what the Void is like?”

“Enough to know it's not the same. You don't know _anything_ about the Smiling God—”

“Of course I do,” Cecil snapped. “It's evil, it hates everything, and wants to destroy everything. And it's so... _bright_.”

“But it's not like the Void,” Kevin insisted. “It doesn't exist like the Void does. When you... went away, you came back, what did you say the Void was like?”

Cecil paused, trying to think back, while Tamika watched him.

Roger, by this point, was sitting in the doorway. Staying on patrol seemed pretty pointless by now, nobody was leaving, right?

“Well, I remember,” Kevin finally answered. “You said you barely remembered, but what you remembered... it was warm. Welcoming. It was like. A nothing you didn't mind going to. Like floating in something that held you on all sides.”

“Sure, we've all been through the Void,” Cecil muttered. “I thought you were making some kind of point about this.”

“Did I ever tell you what it was like when I went and... when the Smiling God found me?” Kevin asked. When Cecil didn't answer immediately, he continued, “I mean, I can already tell you I didn't, because you didn't ask, you didn't care to ask, but it was horrible.”

Cecil gestured for him to continue, but remembered his gestures were lost. “Go on.”

“I thought I'd accidentally gone to the desert, you know, people used to go missing there all the time out by Radon Canyon. That's where I thought I was, it was really sandy, and it was really bright, and I thought it was just out by Radon and I was really disappointed.” He grimaced. “So I tried to find my way back and. Why does everything have to be a desert all the time, Ceec? It's always a fucking desert, I'm _so_ tired of deserts.”

Tamika frowned, but Cecil just rolled his eyes. “We grew up in a desert it's not like you shouldn't be used to it by now. Get to the point.”

“There was nothing there.” Kevin paused. “I mean. Nothing but the sand. There wasn't even a sun. I looked, I couldn't find it. The sky was... almost white, it was. Just all light, and light, and—god. Fuck.” He dropped his face into his hands, even now he was sure he could still feel that light licking at his skin.

Cecil started to say something, but Tamika spoke first. “Take your time. No sense freaking yourself out.” She gave Cecil a pointed stare, and he looked away.

“I realized eventually that it wasn't even a desert. Only, maybe the desert had been there, but then it wasn't, it ceased to exist and. Everything became translucent and. Once the... once the... it was like I didn't exist,” Kevin explained hastily. “It was like nothing did, I messed up the ritual and I'd accidentally winked myself out of existence. Except... it was there. This. Weird force, and me, and nothing else was there. And then. It was just me. I don't know when it burrowed into me.”

“And then you came back, so what's your point?” Cecil demanded. “The others should be able to come back from it.”

Kevin shook his head, “I think it... it needed me. As a vessel. It needed me, that's why it let me out. I don't know. I haven't... seen that place since way back then. It's not really a place at all, I don't know how to... I don't think, unless it creates a new... one...” he trailed off abruptly.

“...Creates a new one?” Tamika prompted at length.

Kevin paused. He wished he could have seen the looks on their faces, how to judge, what he was supposed to be saying next because he couldn't just be confident in his answer. Or confident in anything at all. “The Smiling God isn't what you think it is. It's not... it isn't really a _god_. Or a devil or anything. It's a... it's a hollow. And that's what it strives for. Nothingness.”

“So does the Void,” Cecil replied.

“It's a different kind,” Kevin insisted. “A different nothing. A real... true nonexistence. The Great Unraveling isn't just a name for death. Think about... think about _nature_ , Ceec. Things move toward entropy, I heard once. Think about forest fires. Let's talk about decay.” He just stopped, it seemed like in the middle of a thought.

If nothing else, it had the intended effect of forcing everyone to think about what he'd said to try and figure out what the hell he was talking about.

“...well?” Tamika prompted.

“Do... you know what chaos is like?” Kevin asked. “No, you didn't pay attention in weird science. As much as you love your scientists. The universe is moving toward erasing itself.”

Cecil scowled. “We got rid of that horrible Smiling God, didn't we? Or... did we really not do it?”

Kevin shifted in his seat. “We got ourselves away from it. We didn't, per say, get... rid of the Smiling God. You can't get rid of the absence of things. There's always absence.”

“You said it was alright to just leave it there,” Tamika replied.

Kevin hung his head. “I know what I said. I don't know. Maybe it's just fine. Maybe it... maybe it wasn't such a good idea to just. Leave it behind. When it's like it is.”

“So. What happens now that we've left it unattended?” Cecil asked.

“...I suppose it... kills everyone in the desert otherworld and...” Kevin trailed off, resignation on his face already. “I wasn't even thinking about it.”

Roger joined into the conversation with a suddenness that made the others jump, “It's going to kill all the masked army?” He rose to his feet to make his way over, because the door really didn't need guarding anymore, this conversation was more important.

“And what happens then, Kevin?” Cecil demanded, reaching across the table to grab his brother's shoulders. “Since you're such an expert of the Smiling God.”

All he could say was a quiet “I don't know.”

Cecil stared him down, his nails digging into Kevin's shoulders as if he could dig some answer out of his skin. Tamika cautiously reached over to pull his hands off, and for a moment Cecil nearly retaliated, until Tamika took his place and grabbed Kevin instead. Still with intent to interrogate. She crouched in front of him, pulling him down toward her.

“Kevin? Is something horrible going to happen?” she asked him calmly, confident in that he couldn't see the anxiousness etched into her features.

He frowned. “It... might, if. If the Smiling God doesn't... find a host.”

“Then what's going to happen?” she asked.

“I-I...” Kevin trailed off quickly, wringing his hands. “It... looks for a host until it finds one. Barring that... it. It'll destroy everything else.”

“How... everything are we talking? Everything everything, or just the desert otherworld everything?” Roger asked.

Kevin only shook his head; he didn't know.

Even Cecil seemed a little nervous now, he asked more quietly, “And what stops it?”

“...it needs a host.”

 

* * *

 

Carlos came to himself blinking in the middle of the sand. Was this nonexistence? Wasn't he dead? No. Wait. There was sand beneath his face. Oh, god, there was sand in places sand shouldn't have been.

He sat up, sputtering out mouthfuls, feeling like he'd somehow scooped up the desert in his mouth. Nasty. After that, he looked around.

Somewhere not too far away, somebody else was stirring that he didn't quite recognize, he didn't quite know. Coughing out her own mouthful of sand, Megan Wallaby took a little longer to bother sitting up. Sitting up was kind of a drag, and everything felt burnt.

Carlos tried to call out, but his voice was dry and it cracked. Was this death? He faintly remembered not being anything, like it was a bright white light—but light was something, wasn't it? So then he'd never been nothing.

They'd been something, all of them, in the same place. For a moment he thought about precipitating out of solution, and couldn't help but wonder why he was thinking of science when everything had become so uselessly unscientific lately. Well, what else was a scientist to do?

Dana was the first one who spoke. “Th-that was. Far worse than this desert,” she sputtered, dry voice and all.

“Is it the same desert?” Carlos asked quietly, looking around. Well, it looked the same, which was to say, it looked like a loose sandy desert and maybe that was therefore the same. There weren't any landmarks, wasn't anything to suggest where it was or wasn't.

After a moment, Dana replied, “I don't know. I thought it must have been.” She looked over, squinting in the light. “You're Cecil's scientist, aren't you?”

“Carlos,” he answered automatically. “Um. I guess so. Yeah.”

“Are we dead?” Megan asked in a low voice, still laying in the sand.

“I don't think so,” Dana replied. She moved over and helped Megan sit up, looking the girl over. Well, all of them seemed a little battered, but not overall horrible. Like they'd been whipped by a sandstorm, tiny bits of sand biting into any exposed skin. Megan, in her sleeveless dress, probably had the most bare skin, and it certainly stung.

Shakily, Carlos rose to his feet to get a better look around. “Where do you think everyone is? We should probably try getting back if... we can get back.”

“It beats sitting in the sand, yes,” Dana agreed, standing up as well. The two of them helped pull Megan to her feet last.

She looked around for her hat, but it wasn't anywhere in sight. Carlos tugged his labcoat off and offered it to her. “Tie it around your head. Like uh. Here, I can help if you want. It'll keep you from getting sunburnt.”

Megan crouched while Carlos tied on the labcoat like a headwrap. Sure, it wasn't the cleanest, but none of them were exactly spotless, anyway. One reason to wish they'd been caught in some mythical rainstorm instead of a sandstorm: at least the blood would have been washed off of them, in that case.

After her head was wrapped, Megan straightened back up. “Is it just us...?”

“I...think so, yeah,” Carlos answered. “I mean, I don't see anyone else here.”

She frowned. “Well. I hope...I hope the others are okay.”

Dana reached over and gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. “We'll find them. Promise.”

Megan smiled uneasily.

“We should get going. The longer we stay out in the sun like this the worse the dehydration is gonna be,” Carlos explained, starting in a direction, but Dana stopped him.

“I've been in this desert before, maybe I should lead the way,” she insisted. But, on second thought, she didn't really know how she'd gotten out the last time, except wandering.

Carlos took her word, anyway. “Alright... let's get going then—lead the way.”

Dana looked around a moment, weighing her options, and then took a direction, If they could just find the masked army, or the University, or anything, then they could figure out what to do next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rejoice and be glad?
> 
> thanks for reading!


	58. One Phone Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tamika and Roger make a phonecall. Cecil isn't happy, but since when is Cecil happy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'lo, I am not dead.

“You're sure this is the only option?” Cecil asked, “Calling—ugh— _Steve_?”

            Tamika snorted. “We're not calling Steve, we're calling Janice, it's the only number any one of us has got memorized. At least of anyone who'd likely help us out.”

            Once it became obvious that something needed to be done, the sighted among them had scoured Cecil's apartment for loose change. Kevin sort of sat back and dreaded whatever they were going to do with it, whoever they were going to call.

            It was all he could do not to laugh when it turned out the only phone number Roger could remember was Steve Carlsberg, the dreaded Steve Carlsberg, certainly Cecil's sworn rival if Kevin himself wasn't. Still, a smirk played at the corner of his lips and looked bigger with the scars up his cheeks.

            Now gathered around the kitchen table again, Tamika was spelling out the plan. “Okay, look, let go of your hate for a moment, even if Steve helps us out, isn't that good still? We need to talk to somebody from the _old_ Night Vale, who'd have better advice than anyone here.”

            Cecil groaned. “Asking for _advice_ from Steve Carlsberg? Ew. How about we just ask for advice from a garbage can? It'll probably be better!”

            “Because a _garbage can_ doesn't know the latest on where they're bonding people to their bloodstones these days,” Tamika grumbled, “And honestly. If anyone's keeping track of things they aren't supposed to know, you know for a fact it's Steve Carlsberg.”

            “Ah! So you _are_ trying to talk to him!” Cecil exclaimed.

            Roger snorted. “Look we don't really need you to come it's not like everyone can talk on the phone at the same time anyway, so.”

            “Oh, well if you're not including me then go, make your plans on your own,” Cecil scoffed. “With your buddy Steve Carlsberg.”

            Tamika swatted his arm. “We need to get a hold of new bloodstones. _All_ of ours are gone. Yours and Kevin's too. I just wanna know you're on the same page that we're getting them back.”

            “For who?” Kevin grumbled. “You know they don't do adult bondings that often, at least they didn't when I was last around. Be lucky if you can get new stones for even one of us.”

            Cecil added, “He's probably right. If bloodstones were that readily available, nobody would be careful with theirs.”

            “...okay I'd still be careful with mine, getting those things hurt like fuck,” Roger added. Tamika nodded in solemn agreement.

            “Then we can maybe count on getting one new set, so I'll get it,” Cecil suggested.

            Tamika frowned. “Okay, so it's not me or Roger, definitely, if we can only get one person. But honestly. And don't take this the wrong way, Cecil. I think if we can only get one person new bloodstones it should be Kevin.”

            Kevin sunk in his seat. “Oh. No, that's fine, Cecil's fine.”

            “What? Why _him_?” Cecil argued. “He's sloppy. He's always been sloppy! He won't even know how to get us back to the desert otherworld.”

            “Good thing there's a gaping entrance to the desert in the dog park—I mean, the place where the University used to be,” Roger remarked.

            Cecil sulked. “Okay, fine. But what happens if he loses those bloodstones too?”

            “Well if that's the argument we're making, what if you lost them?” Tamika pointed out.

            He scoffed. “I kept mine for a very long time just fine. Kevin didn't even know where his _were_ all that time—”

            Kevin interrupted him, “Of course I knew where they were. I remembered you took them from me before I ended up in that miserable desert as well. I'm not that forgetful.”

            Cecil looked away, folding his arms across his chest. “I still think it's a stupid idea. I was always better with my bloodstones, Kevin can't even deny that.”

            “But he knows more about the Smiling God and what we'll need to do to _deal_ with the Smiling God, and...” Roger paused, considering carefully before he continued, “I've never seen anyone carry out any ritual like that before. So I don't know why you think he's bad.”

            “He's sloppy,” Cecil huffed.

            Tamika replied, “It worked anyway.”

            “Right. And that's supposed to be a good argument.” Cecil wasn't pleased.

            “Look, Ceec, nobody said you can't ever get new ones,” Kevin mumbled. “Believe me I don't even _want_ new ones but... maybe they're right.”

            “You need blood for bloodstone rituals,” Cecil insisted, sounding almost smug. “You couldn't even perform one if you're bled out.”

            Instead of the expected understanding, Cecil instead found the others looking uncomfortable. Tamika stared at him, like she was waiting for his own realization to kick in. Roger looked away.

            “That's your fault, you know,” Kevin finally muttered. “So if I need a donor you can probably give me some of your blood. I've worked rituals off donated blood before.”

            Cecil looked away from all of the others. “Fine. We'll get you bloodstones, but if this all goes wrong, and we all stop existing, I'm blaming you.”

            “Okay, Ceec. You can blame me once we don't exist anymore,” Kevin sighed.

            Tamika rolled her eyes. Cecil had always been melodramatic enough on his own, but putting him in the same room as Kevin just made everything considerably worse. “Alright. So we're agreed then? We go talk to Steve and he tells us where they're binding bloodstones and Kevin gets a new set?”

            “And then we go to the desert otherworld and fix this,” Cecil added.

            She stood up. “Alright, I'll give Steve a call. There's a payphone in the lobby of this place, isn't there?”

            “Do you want me to show you?” Cecil asked, preparing to get up, but she shook her head.

            “Really think I can find it myself. Thanks. You don't need to talk to Steve when I actually need him to help with something.”

            After she'd walked off, Roger waited just long enough to pretend like he wasn't following her, when he got up to blatantly follow her. He excused himself to go use the bathroom, and went in the entirely wrong direction, leaving the apartment instead.

            “You know this is your fault, Kevin,” Cecil said once the silence went on too long.

            Kevin snorted. “What, Tamika and Roger calling _Steve Carlsberg_?”

            “The fact we have to go back at all,” he huffed in reply. “If you had just taken back the Smiling God in the first place, would this have happened? No. We would all be fine.”

            “Except me,” Kevin hissed.

            “You're just one person,” Cecil insisted. “Better you than everything else.”

             

            “Hi! You've reached the Carlsberg residence, we're probably not home right now, or maybe somebody's in the bathroom, or maybe we're just busy? Anyway, leave a message on the machine, and we'll get back to you. Thanks! Here's the beep.”

            Tamika held the payphone in a white-knuckled grip as Steve's voice cheerfully trailed off, and the tone sounded. She hissed to Roger through gritted teeth: “That was all the change we had.”

            “Maybe we can find more,” Roger loudly whispered in return.

            Tamika tried to sound upbeat as she answered the machine, “Hi, Steve, or Abby, or Janice—it's Tamika. Roger's here too. We wanted to call you and ask about getting rebound to some bloodstones, or something, uh, I figured Steve would know some kind of...”

            She trailed off as a click on the other line signaled that the phone had been picked up. Janice answered on the other line. “Tamika? Are you guys okay? You said you were going to find uncle Cecil.”

            “Yeah, yeah, we found him, actually we were hoping maybe your dad is home? I'm reeeally sorry but we're on a payphone and don't have long so—“

            Janice's voice could be heard, a bit away from the phone, calling: “Dad! Tamika wants to talk to you put down your laptop and pick up the phone!”

            Roger quirked an eyebrow, gesturing to the phone, and mouthed “Janice?”

            Tamika nodded, and thanked Janice when she returned to the line. “I promise, we'll call back later just after everything else is sorted out, okay?”

            “You're making it sound like something really bad happened, Tamika,” Janice replied, her tone of voice worried. “Is everything alright over there?”

            After Tamika hesitated long enough on an answer, Janice just said a quick goodbye and quickly passed the phone off to her father.

            “Hello? Who am I speaking to?” Steve asked, like he hadn't just been told that Tamika was on the other line.

            “It's Tamika,” she replied “And if we can pass the interrogation round right now, I'd really appreciate it because we're on a pay phone.” She rolled her eyes before and glanced toward Roger, who returned a similar gesture.

            Steve paused, but let it go. “Okay, I just wanted to be sure it was _really—_ ”

            “It's really me. Trust me. Roger is here too,” she insisted. “Listen. Do you—can you tell us where we can get new bloodstones? We all lost ours, and we kind of need new ones. I know they don't really do adult bindings but—”

            “Of course they do adult bindings,” Steve interrupted. “They'll come to you when you need them, or at least that's what they say. Really, it's a complicated system of surveillance and I think some illegal form of telepathic—”

            “Okay but how can we get them _now_?” she asked. “I mean, we _really_ need them, well, Kevin needs them anyway.”

            There was a long pause on Steve's end, and Tamika just about thought their time had run out before he finally spoke again, “ _Kevin_? Is he that _horrible_ man who wanted to 'fix' Janice?”

            She thought she could hear keys clicking, like perhaps he was searching for something on his laptop. Some entry into the excel sheets he kept. She paused for a moment to muse over the fact that he'd made an entry on Kevin—what was even in there? That he was horrible?

            “It's—that's a long story,” Tamika explained. “Love to explain it to you but can't right now, just—where do we go and get new bloodstones? It’s important. Fate of the world, stuff like that.”

            “Where are you kids?” Steve asked.

            They looked at each other a moment, trying to determine what to answer. Night Vale? But that would be meaningless. How many Night Vales had there been? This was only one of them. Roger took the phone, “We’re uh. New Night Vale, where Cecil took up residence. It’s sort of more south, and a little bit west.”

            “Oh, hi Roger,” Steve murmured thoughtfully, the sound of his keyboard still in the background. “About how south and how west?”

            “I—I don’t know, like eight, nine hours on the bus?” Tamika offered, leaning in close to the phone as she answered. “I don’t know how many miles or anything though.”

            She could practically imagine the look on Steve’s face in the silence to follow. He always made the same damn face. Whenever she said something he didn’t like, maybe about how she didn’t really think that everything the government did was always bad, or how his scones needed a little more sugar. He always did this pursed-lip scowl and his eyes would go sort of hazy for a moment, like he was miles away, but she figured he was always just trying to think of a comeback when he did that. Usually, his comebacks were awful.

            “Well do you have any information on what the town used to be called?” Steve asked at length, his voice half obscured behind a warning from the phone—time was almost up.

            “N-no, no, I don’t, we’re almost out of time though, I don’t have another way to reach you can you just—how do we find places to get new bloodstones?” Tamika pleaded, speaking faster as time ran out.

            Steve sighed. “Well, usually it would happen out behind Big Rico’s, so if anyone has built one yet. Or if you’re lucky, the hooded strangers might—”

            The line cut off, Steve’s voice replaced by a dial tone. Tamika slammed the phone down, then slammed it a couple more times just for good measure. “Damn it! Nothing!”

            Roger grimaced. “I guess we could ask if any new shops have opened up… Or… something, I don’t know.” He looked down at the payphone. That was the only damn plan that seemed like it might work. “…this is pointless, isn’t it?”

            “God, it might be,” Tamika groaned. “Come on. Let’s… I don’t know. Maybe Cecil or Kevin came up with something.” She doubted it, but turned back to the stairs to head up to Cecil’s apartment again.

            Instead, the two of them were surprised to see Cecil coming down to meet them—and Kevin with him. In fact, Kevin’s arm was draped over his brother’s shoulder, using him as support so he wouldn’t fall down the stairs. It was the closest they’d been to each other voluntarily, this entire time, and it almost seemed friendly.

Roger started to speak, “Steve didn’t have any—”

Cecil interrupted him. “We need to get out of here. All of us. Whatever the hell Kevin said on the radio yesterday—…we need to go.”

Kevin said nothing, guilt etched into his features. Something had happened, and neither of them cared to explain to Tamika or Roger. Cecil ushered them both toward the back door of the apartment building, and as they stepped outside, they could hear it:

Night Vale had mobilized for blood, as it had many a time before, over many iterations.

This time, they were chanting Cecil’s name. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, I've said a million times and will say again, barring some act of god, there is no reason to worry that this story won't be finished. my goal at present is to finish it before 2017. I've been, over the past few months, swamped with work in an unprecedented manner, some good things, some bad things, but just lots and lots of things. 
> 
> that said, it seems like things are calming down for the time being, so maybe I'll get down to a more regular update schedule again. at any rate, here's one more chapter, and I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> as always, comments and kudos are awesome, and even when I'm not necessarily updating, I'm always here to respond to comments. <3 you guys rock.


	59. The Revolutionary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mx. Mitchell has finally had enough, and it's time to chase some dangerous people out of Night Vale.

[It may be true that we aren’t living our ideal lives. Hello again, Night Vale.

Have I got news for you.]

Mx. Mitchell waited a moment, let the silence be filled with the ominous music that now seemed to generate from nowhere whenever they ran their radio segment. Was ominous music part of station management, or something wrong with the equipment, or something else entirely?

There was an intern in the break room that only uttered monosyllabic words decrying the end times, but that wasn’t the source of the music.

Anyway, it made their broadcasts sound a little more exciting.

[I’m sure you’re wondering whether it’s good news or bad news. Has the city finally monetized the mass amounts of animal gore that covers the streets once a week? Are we all going to succumb to the new plague of grape tomatoes swarming the Night Vale Conservatory? Is somebody coming to get us? Is it clowns?

The answer to all of those questions is no, I’m not sure where you came up with those questions, but they’re absurd.

I’m sure that to some of you, this is all still an adjustment from the way things used to be. I know we’ve been greeting our loved ones for the past twenty-four hours, and I’m glad to see so many faces returned to the streets of Night Vale. We missed you. I, your radio host, missed you. Welcome back, and I suppose, welcome to Night Vale. I know things were different before.

I, at least, remember how things were different before. I imagine some of you must also remember. Some of you may not have any inkling of what’s been going on. I know that a strange case of amnesia seems to have taken hold of many citizens, it _can_ get rather troubling not to remember what’s going on, right?

You may remember the town as it was, but you probably can’t remember the name. I know I can’t. I’ve tried, trust me. I swear it was on some legal documents here, but I can’t find a trace. It might be that the mysterious government agents have been picking my files to change names. It might be that the effect has nothing at all to do with people. I don’t know what to even call ourselves, except for Night Vale.

Am I the radio host of What Once Was?

We were a simple town, a sleepy town, everybody knew each other, and nobody did much of anything. I spent my while reporting on celebrities that nobody would ever meet, and sometimes marriage announcements or reports of petty crimes. There was a lot of weather—music. There was a lot of music.

Something changed, do you remember what changed? Do any of us remember anything from before Night Vale? I do. I don’t know why, perhaps because I’m meant to tell you what’s going on. What has happened to our quiet town.

So if this is my purpose, then I’ll tell you what’s going on. His name is Cecil Palmer.

Cecil Palmer is the cause of all of this.

While you were all greeting your loved ones, and mourning those who didn’t return, I thought about telling you all of this. What I would tell you. If I should tell you. When I should tell you. I supposed for a time that he was on our side—I suppose none of you probably know who he is, except that he had a strange segment on my radio show some time ago. That’s probably for the best.

He has caused nothing but destruction to fall on our beloved Night Vale.

He sent away our University, he called all of the horrors that have been plaguing us. He has killed our wives, our husbands, our children, our other unlisted family members. We hail a Glow Cloud—allhail—brought here by his own design. We avoid the Dog Park caused by his own selfishness. Some part of you still knows I’m right.

Look in your hearts. Try to do so without taking them out. Look deep, deep inside yourself, metaphorically, and without the use of sharp utensils.

Do you remember what this city used to be?]

Mx. Mitchell let silence fill the booth, waiting for the ominous music to pick up volume again. It didn’t. In fact, they couldn’t hear even a touch of that now-familiar tune. They frowned, looking around as though the source would reappear.

Well, this was what it used to be like, wasn’t it?

[Night Vale used to be something. Used to be beautiful. Okay. Maybe not beautiful. But you could walk your dog without fear of it being carried off by the giant spiders that have taken over the subway station. Is it too much to ask to just walk your dog in peace?

So I have a proposition for you: we need to come together, people of Night Vale. We need to come together and free ourselves of the evil that has infected this place. That has caused so much loss, so many deaths, so many strange new things that we’re all vaguely uncomfortable about and would rather not have seen.

We need to rid ourselves of Cecil Palmer and anyone who associates with him.

He has been a pox on this town, from the time he first came here. We all knew to distrust him, to fear him—a man with three eyes, a man who looks so very different from the rest of us. For god’s sake, he wears furry pants with a bath robe and calls it haute couture! Are we really going to tolerate this sort of behavior from somebody in our Night Vale?

Remember: he sent away our University, our people. I have heard it from the mouths of his own companions. He is dangerous, and should be treated as such.

He’s a stranger. He doesn’t belong here.

He never has.

So consider this my call to arms: ready yourselves. Find weapons. Torches and pitchforks. Brooms and dustpans. Oversized appliances. I’m going to chase him out, and I’m going to need all the help I can get.

Nobody knows what he’s capable of.

But we need to make Night Vale ours again.]

Mx. Mitchell finished that thought and stared into their radio equipment with a frown. They’d thought it over, sure. It still sounded harsh saying it—they had to remind themself of what had really happened. Something about Cecil made it so easy to forgive and forget.

They didn’t want to forget, and they didn’t want anybody else to forget, either. They sent one last call out over the radio:

[Meet by the Night Vale Community Radio. I’ll lead the way.]

Anita Mitchell rose to her feet after switching on the [weather](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFu8od9YzlM). The broadcast was done, for now. The broadcast would come back later. For now, her duty as a radio host was with the people, leading revolution. That was… what radio hosts did, wasn’t it?

She made to leave the booth, but opened the door to a familiar tall face leering down at her with far too many eyes. Anita stumbled away as Erika pushed into the booth. The stun gun she’d stuffed into their pocket in the morning suddenly felt very tempting—did that work on angels? Would anything work on angels?

As if hearing her thoughts, Erika replied in their usual incomprehensible speech patterns: Anita Mitchell is doing a very bad thing, was the gist of what was said. Anita Mitchell is no longer the Voice of Night Vale, and should not try to act like it.

“That’s Mx. Mitchell to you!” she sputtered. “And—and you can take your Night Vale and go somewhere else with it! This is my city! My people!”

Erika tutted at the radio host, shaking their head, but every eye stayed fixated on Anita Mitchell’s form. Unblinking. Judging. With a stare that burned. No, really. It was starting to burn. She tried to back away further from Erika’s judgment.

“He—he came into this city and ruined it!” she snapped. “His friends—they admitted it! He sent away the University on purpose!”

As Erika’s hand reached out to grab her, Anita scrambled and shoved past and out of the booth. She slammed the door shut and scanned the area for something to blockade with. Why the hell were all the good bits of blockade furniture in the damn employee lounge? How the hell was she supposed to blockade something into the booth, then?

Anita made a mental note that she’d have to invest in some better, heavier furniture, and leaned against the door with her own weight instead.

“You can’t blame me for wanting to protect my people!” she called back to the angel. “You—you’re not protecting us anymore!”

Their communication burned its way into her consciousness, even though she couldn’t hear a word that they spoke, this time. Their plans were mysterious. Humans couldn’t understand the plans, they wouldn’t want to, but it was helping people.

“Bullshit!” she spat. “Helping who??”

Some needed to be lost in order to save others, came the reply.

It became obvious that Erika wasn’t even trying to open the door to the broadcasting booth. Anita cautiously took a couple of steps away, turning to watch the door. Through the frosted window, the angel’s tall form was visible.

Empowered by the lack of an attack, Anita cried out, “Nobody’s life is worth more than someone else’s!” She took several more steps back from the broadcasting booth. “And I—I don’t care about your plans, Erika. They’re hurting the people I love.”

Erika did not budge. Anita Mitchell is doing a bad thing, they insisted once again. The radio booth was surrendered to the angel, every piece of equipment slowly starting to fry in their blessed presence, beyond any awareness from the radio host herself.

Anita grabbed the station’s fire extinguisher lest she needed a blunt object, and made her way out to the sidewalk, to her people. To….well, a few had gotten there already, but more were trickling in, and she watched with no small amount of pride as the crowd grew larger over a span of merely minutes. Because as much as things had changed for the worse, she did know one thing: before their sleepy town became Night Vale, she never could have called a single person out to the streets to protest, let alone to riot.

People were arriving with shovels and steak knives, curtain rods and baseball bats, ready to take down anything that came their way. Though still early in the day, the sky was already giving way to a dark gray in a way that could have once suggested a storm, but knowing Night Vale for what it was, Anita was sure that the sky signaled revolution.

Watching over her people, Anita knew there was no way they could lose.

 

Stumbling out the back of the apartment complex as quietly as possible, Cecil led the others to a back alley exit that nobody had discovered just yet. Between himself and Roger, they managed to keep Kevin moving at a reasonable clip, though his steps still weren’t as steady as they’d once been. Still, it was no good leaving him behind at this point; if he was caught by the mob, their entire plan would fall through.

Which… it essentially already had. Tamika waited until they had made some distance through the alleys and away from the crowd before she asked, voice hushed, “What are we supposed to do now? We can’t get bloodstones if we don’t know where—”

“We leave,” Cecil interrupted. “We leave, Night Vale forgets us, it moves on, we move on. I’ve had to do it before.”

“You? The Voice of Night Vale getting chased out?” Kevin snorted. “Imagine.”

Tamika disrupted the argument before it could start. “We need to get back into the desert though, we have to stop the Smiling God.”

Cecil shook his head. “We can find somewhere else to—ah shit.”

In their haste, they hadn’t searched the side routes nearly well enough, and so it was that the mob spotted them moving through the alleyway. With a wild, visceral howl, the little girl who’d noticed them took chase. Within moments, the mob flooded toward them, moving more like a solid mass than individuals by this point.

“Move move move move!” Roger wrapped his arm higher up on Kevin’s waist and tried to drag him faster. The attempt served to do little except trip him up entirely; the next second, Kevin was on his knees with them both trying to pull him to his feet again.

Tamika cried out to her friend, “Roger just run! They’ve got it just—” She cut off with a yelp as something jabbed her in the back, which turned out to be a fire extinguisher. The other branch of the mob had circled into the alley to surround them, with Mx. Mitchell leading the group. They prodded Tamika with the extinguisher until she backed away to join the other three, now looking more and more like frightened animals surrounded by the world’s most mixed up hunting convention. Kevin was on his feet again, but to very little purpose.

“C-can we help you?” Tamika asked nervously, not wanting any answer, anyway. Not any sort of answer she was expecting.

Mx. Mitchell’s expression soured even more, if possible, at Tamika’s words. “You need to leave. Now, while it’s still voluntary, or we’ll _make_ you leave.”

“Listen, we could leave but—you’re all in grave danger,” Tamika insisted.

“And whose fault is that?” Mx. Mitchell snapped. “You’ve all said it, we all know it—Cecil is the cause of this. If we get rid of him, it follows, this all leaves.”

Cecil grimaced. “That isn’t really how Night Vale works,” he muttered, but nobody asked him for a detailed description of how Night Vale really worked. Which was disappointing, he was totally looking forward to his chance to describe I all in detail while he tried to think of a better way to stall for time.

“We just want to help,” Tamika whined. “I understand, a lot of damage was done but—”

Mx. Mitchell interrupted her, “Pay attention to whatever you say next, because it’s got to be worse than all of the death and destruction, or we’re all chasing you out. Now.”

Tamika froze up, not so sure her attempts at excuses were any good at all. It was Kevin who had few enough reservations that he spoke up next, “This whole place is going to unravel and stop existing.”

A quiet murmur arose from those closest to their captives. Well, that admittedly _was_ worse than Night Vale continuing to exist, but with some issues.

“Explain yourself,” Mx. Mitchell demanded, now turning their attention to Kevin, specifically. They brandished the fire extinguisher at him, but he didn’t so much as react, his blindness rather diminishing their attempts at intimidation.

It wasn’t necessary, anyway. He spoke, and he spoke regardless of any threats: “There is an entity out in that desert that shouldn’t be there—I mean, it shouldn’t have been left behind, it should have stayed with us. This thing, this Smiling God, it wants nothing except the great unraveling. For everything to stop existing, and it will keep going until it makes sure that happens. But it’s not safe just because it’s in the desert, at least, I don’t know if it is—”

Mx. Mitchell interrupted, “Cut to the chase, I know you’re stalling.”

Kevin sighed. “We were trying to return to the desert already, so we could take care of the Smiling God, however we needed to. But we were going to get new—”

They interrupted him a second time, “If you’re going to the desert, then leave. Leave, voluntarily, and we won’t be forced to chase you out.”

“We need to find new bloodstones first,” Cecil protested. “All of ours were destroyed or left behind.” Even as he said the words, though, he realized something. Cecil spun to face his companions, and the same realization had already dawned on Tamika.

She mouthed the words ‘left behind’ to him, and then Cecil was jabbed in the back by a young woman with a baseball bat. He turned around, back to the others again.

“What are you planning?” Mx. Mitchell hissed.

“Nothing—we just want to retrieve our new bloodstones,” Cecil replied, plan already forming in his mind. “If you please, you just need to be patient and _not_ put us in the dog park.”

Kevin scoffed. “Reverse psychology is _dumb_ , Cecil, and you’re dumb too. Just take us to the dog park.” He looked in the direction he thought Mx. Mitchell was in, and was mostly correct, at least. “We won’t be in your hair anymore if we’re in—”

“ _Why_ would you just—Kevin, you have no idea how to talk to the citizens of Night Vale, do you?” Cecil groaned. He gestured wildly at the gathered citizens’ faces, full of dark expressions under an increasingly darkening sky.

“I don’t think trying some cheesy reverse psychology schtick is really going to work, Ceec,” Kevin insisted. “I’m pretty sure if you actually think they’re going to all be stupid enough to not even question your intents, we’re much better off just asking directly.”

Cecil turned to face his brother, but found that he was once again being jabbed in the back the moment his back was turned. He spun to face the woman that kept poking him, “Would you stop that?? You have to realize I’m noticing—”

“Sure do,” she snorted. “Wouldn’t bother if you didn’t.”

“Can we focus for like five seconds?” Tamika snapped before Cecil had a chance to try and start something with the stranger. “If Cecil’s bloodstones were just left in the desert and not destroyed, we don’t even need to replace them, we can use those—we just need to get to the desert and figure it out from there.”

Mx. Mitchell watched them go back and forth, ripping at each other every time they spoke, and thought a lot about how if Night Vale really was in danger and needed saving, these weren’t the people to depend on for anything. “You need to be quiet,” they hissed.

“Tell me about it,” Roger grumbled, and winced when Tamika elbowed him in the side.

“We just need to go to the dog park,” Kevin insisted more loudly. “Take us to the dog park and we’ll leave.”

Mx. Mitchell called out over the group again, voice raising in volume. “You need to be quiet!”

“I think if perhaps we were all calm about this,” Cecil began, only to be interrupted.

Tamika grabbed his arm. “Cecil, listen—Kevin’s got it. We just need to get to the—”

“I said quiet!” Mx. Mitchell shrieked.

Finally, silence followed, and all eyes were on them as they watched and waited to ensure that nobody was saying a word. Even the murmuring of the mob had silenced so much that a pin could have dropped and sounded like—well, whatever just dropped that wasn’t a pin.

A jackrabbit slammed into the pavement between Kevin and Mx. Mitchell, exploding on impact into a wide splatter of gore. The commotion seemed to spread almost instantly to the mob as more animals came down, as if pelted from the sky.

Tamika spun to look at the others, the shadows cast from the clouds overhead replaced with bursts of neon and a sickly blue glow across everyone’s faces. She laughed, went to say something, and the only words that came out of her mouth were: “All hail. All hail!”

Overhead, the overcast of the sky had given way to a light show so familiar and so welcome that Tamika wasn’t the only one who started laughing as she stared up at the glowing cloud. Roger’s face brightened, and not just literally. He whooped and called up at the cloud, “All hail!”

As a portion of the crowd went down under a side of beef, some part of the mob began to scatter, all shrieking praises in a panic or a cry of ecstasy—sometimes it was hard to tell which. Others stood transfixed, staring up into the sky as not a drop of rain hit them from above, and splatters of animal blood came in from all sides.

Cecil muttered praises under his breath, stared only a moment at Mx. Mitchell, and then tried to grab the others to drag them away as the downpour of assorted four-legged beasts began in earnest. Tamika staggered and slammed into his back, wrapped her arm around Roger’s waist, and the three of them nearly left Kevin behind.

Unable to get any other words out of his mouth except the requisite chant, Cecil grabbed his brother by the arm and pulled him, stumbling, straight through the mob as it began to disperse. It was as if a spell had been broken, and most of Night Vale forgot what it had come there for. Cecil shoved past a woman as a panicked Doberman slammed against her head, and Kevin sputtered at the spray of blood that made it into his mouth.

Tamika broke from the other side of the mob first, and tried to call directions to the others, still laughing and covered in blood and blue light. “All hail!” she called, “Aaaaall hail!”

            Roger made it to her side and wrapped his arms around her, laughing in relief and a little bit of the glow cloud’s effects, and spun Tamika for half a rotation before a fawn slammed into the ground next to them and sent him stumbling. Tamika planted her feet on the ground and steadied him, looking back to the mob where Cecil and Kevin had finally surfaced.

            She waved her arm in a sweeping arc to catch their attention, and then took off running, pulling Roger by the wrist behind her. Cecil glanced back at his brother, scowled, and hoisted Kevin up into his arms to carry him. All Kevin could say in protest as he started to run was a meek and frustrated, “All hail.”

            The four ran in two pairs, skidding and scrambling through the streets of Night Vale, bathed in animal gore and an array of colorful lights that danced off their faces and anything reflective. As panicked citizens ran for cover, they dodged past, often laughing at the strangeness of the situation, and a little bit at the festive air that had taken over the afternoon.

            It felt like a Christmas miracle, if Christmas miracles were real and not manufactured by a vague and menacing government agency.

The door to the dog park came into view as they were breaking free from the glow cloud’s range, so Tamika tried calling back to the others again. “Come on! We’re almost there!”

“All hail!” Cecil called back, and then a second later, sputtered, “I know!”

“You want us to just go ahead?” Tamika called out, releasing Roger’s hand as they came within a block of the door. They were safe—they’d made it home free. She caught a look at his face, and both of them were grinning, and both of them were stll covered in gore, but it didn’t even matter in the least.

Cecil answered, “Go ahead, we’re right behind you!”

“Alright! We’ll see you on the other side!” Tamika yelled back, and then turned again to face the door, expecting the last few yards to go quickly—only to find that a certain bloody radio host had somehow appeared in front of the door.

Mx. Mitchell scowled at the approaching group, hand on the doorknob. They’d already known what was going to happen the moment that Tamika started running; they were going to make a break for the dog park door.

Although the original intent of the mob had been to chase them away at all costs, Mx. Mitchell stood their ground as Tamika and Roger skidded to a stop across from them. If they wanted in so badly, Mx. Mitchell had to know _why_.

“You need to get out of the way,” Tamika insisted, voice still elevated from the excitement of the mood that was now starting to wear off. “Please—we need to get through.”

Mx. Mitchell scowled. “And why? What are you going to do if I let you past?”

“We need to get rid of the Smiling God,” Roger answered. “It’s on the other side and—”

“How do I know you’re not just trying to pull something over on me? On my people?” they interrupted. “You’ve clearly already proven your loyalty is more to each other than to Night Vale.”

Tamika hesitated, not sure that was entirely untrue. “Look, if we don’t get to the desert then—”

Mx. Mitchell interrupted again, “Then we all die? How do we know you won’t kill us all, anyway, just to accomplish your plans without harm to any of yourselves?”

“You don’t,” Kevin’s voice answered. “You don’t know if you can trust us, you probably can’t.” They looked up as Cecil approached, gasping for air with his brother still cradled against his chest. Kevin wasn’t that easy to run across town with. Gingerly, he tried to get out of Cecil’s grip, and Cecil was all too glad to drop him back on his feet again. He doubled over, hands on his knees, and tried to catch his breath while the others talked.

Tamika gave Kevin a dirty look and started to mouth some choice words, but remembered that, oh yeah, Kevin still couldn’t see a damn thing.

“I can’t trust you—great. Then why the hell should I let you through this door?” Mx. Mitchell snapped.

“Because I’m going to kill you,” Kevin replied casually, and cracked a wicked grin, made all the more wicked by the scars that always pulled at the corners of his lips. Tentacles started to slip out from under the baggy shirt of Cecil’s that he was wearing, and Mx. Mitchell pressed their back against the door, tense.

Kevin advanced on the radio host, voice dripping with honey as he spoke, “Now you don’t _want_ me to have to kill you do you?” He smiled warmly, his tentacles reached for her—and Tamika tried to grab one of them.

“Kevin, _don’t_ ,” she hissed. “We don’t just kill people for—” she cut off as the tentacle shook her off and shoved her back several feet.

“Maybe you don’t!” Kevin howled, “But I do!”

With that, his five remaining tentacles reached for Mx. Mitchell and they clamped their eyes shut, pressing closer against the door. Waiting to be torn limb from limb.

It didn’t happen.

They opened their eyes, uncertain, and found Kevin staring back with hollow sockets, tentacles still hovering like weapons ready to be used. He scowled at them. “Leave. Or you’ll get to see me be serious.”

“You people are monsters!” Mx. Mitchell snapped. “I’m not letting you just—”

Kevin slapped them away from the door with a pair of tentacles, and twisted the knob with a third. “Then we’ll do it my way,” he laughed, and stumbled into the vague nothingness on the other side, vanishing from view once the last black tip of his last tentacle had slipped away.

Mx. Mitchell scrambled to try and block the door again, but Roger had already made a run for it, and dove past as they tried to block him, sliding away into the void. Tamika barreled past after him, and by this point, the defeated radio host had given up.

They stood and watched Cecil approach the door, disapproving.

He didn’t make eye contact, but just walked in and pulled the door shut after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoosh. here we go, another chapter. always always promise I'm still going! this will get done.
> 
> hope you enjoy! as always, comments and kudos keep my house warm in the winter, thank u friends.


	60. What Once Was, but Isn't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos, Dana, and Megan explore the old University and look for clues of what happened while they were gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year!

            The University of What It Is stood hollow in the middle of the desert. Sand drifted into the campus and piled against the walls of the building, borne on occasional gusts of wind. It didn’t look anything the same as it once had, all of the plants that had once made the area look artificially lush had already dehydrated and died under the scorching desert sun.

            As the trio dragged themselves in toward the building, Carlos mused that dying under the scorching sun sounded at least a little bit alright.

            The masked army was nowhere in sight, but at least they’d found a landmark to prove that this desert was the same they’d left before. Dana was the first to pick up the pace once she saw shade. The entryway of the school was open, doors hanging ajar and letting in sand and heat, but she ducked into the shadowy hallway like she’d never seen shade in her life.

Megan caught up close behind, and Carlos last of all. He absolutely couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. Maybe it was just thinking about the way things had been.

“I… guess everyone left, huh,” he muttered into the empty hallway. “I hope they’re… okay? I mean, they’re probably fine. I hope.”

He had been to this campus many a time, and taught many students who, ideally, had mostly gotten out of the place alive. He sort of dreaded that maybe that wasn’t necessarily the case, but Megan’s voice interrupted him.

“Hey, the water fountain still works.” She didn’t sound exuberant, mostly because her voice was so dry and cracked she could hardly use it. Megan all but stuffed her face into the stream of water, drinking greedily and then splashing water on her sunburnt skin. Fortunately, the labcoat Carlos had let her use to cover her head had kept her mostly untouched, but her face was still raw and red as any other bit of exposed skin.

Dana hovered close by the water fountain and waited for Megan to step aside and give her a turn with it. Carlos stared at the floor near their feet.

“How does the water fountain work…? There’s no plumbing, is there?” he asked.

“Don’t think about it too hard,” Dana replied. “I can tell you’re still not used to the way things work. It just works.”

He quietly accepted the answer and joined the queue, waiting for Megan and then Dana to finish their use of the water fountain. Dana walked away with a dripping face and a satisfied smile as Carlos edged in closer to the fountain and splashed his own face. The sudden temperature change stung against the fresh sunburn, but in a good way.

If asked, he would have easily reported that he had never had a drink that was more refreshing or delicious than the lukewarm water fountain offered him.

Only once the three had all satisfied their need of water did Carlos speak again, “Okay, so, it’s… really empty here? I’m guessing everyone left. I mean, I guess I said that before.”

Dana sighed, “You did. They probably did leave. I guess they must have thought we were gone, or something.”

“Well we _were_ gone,” Carlos pointed out helpfully.

Megan nodded, glum. “Even if… …well, I know Tamika and Roger would’ve stayed if they thought we were here.” She didn’t want to make the suggestion, but sort of did, that practically nobody was going to wait for them.

Carlos frowned. “And Cecil?”

After an uncomfortable silence passed between the three of them, Dana finally spoke, voice soft. “Look, Carlos, I… I know you’re new to this but. Cecil has left a lot of people behind, before. I wandered through this desert otherworld for—I don’t even know, for a long time before I got back out, you know? And, he did talk to me, I guess, whenever I could get through and um, talk to him in return? But I guess… well, I don’t know. Thinking back, maybe he could have helped more. Maybe not.”

“I guess you’re right,” Carlos sighed, feeling burned from more than just the scorching sun outside. “I don’t know, I just… well, a lot is happening, isn’t it? I can’t just… just because he—well, we have to do something. That’s all.”

(They’d shared that morning together, he was sure it was chemistry. In the scientific way. Endorphins and all those lovey things that people got when they really found someone neat. But maybe it wasn’t? Carlos didn’t want to think that maybe, maybe Cecil had been using him, but he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe it was true.

He’d been wrong before. It was part of being a scientist.)

After trailing off into thought for a few minutes, Carlos realized the other two weren’t waiting around for him to make the decision of what they’d be doing next. Dana had started down the hall, and Megan prodded him on the shoulder to snap him out of it.

“Come on,” she said, “Dana thinks maybe we can find some food here.”

Carlos nodded, and followed, hoping maybe he’d think of some way out of this, if he had a good meal and some good time to think.

After all, if everyone else had left, there had to be a way out.

The hallways echoed with their footsteps, something he’d never really had the opportunity to hear while the school was occupied. Echoing, and the sound of his own thoughts, and a weird occasional crackle from the damaged PA system, like something was still trying to broadcast on occasion.

That… third one didn’t seem like it belonged, actually, but he didn’t think too much about it. When Dana got turned around in the halls, Carlos took the lead. “Come on. If there’s food in the cafeteria or something—well, it’s this way, anyway.” He led the way down a narrow corridor, one he’d used as a shortcut many a time to avoid the more crowded walkways.

Megan ducked under a couple of lower-hanging bulbs that were pretty much just dangling from the ceiling on wires. “Why’s it so weird in here?”

“Oh, this is a maintenance hall, nobody ever really goes down here um. There’s no classrooms, but it’s faster than walking around stuff. The cafeteria’s in the other end of the building, if there’s food there,” Carlos explained, dipping into a monotone, professorial chatter. He was tired.

“Oh,” Megan answered, and said nothing else. Long, empty hallways weren’t exactly the best in big, empty buildings. Anything could hide down there. She hoped this school didn’t have any librarians, or maybe that the former students had already killed them all.

The other end of the hallway spit them back out into a much wider corridor, from which Carlos pushed open the staff entry to the cafeteria, and they were instantly hit with the horrific stench of rotting meat.

Dana gagged, covering her nose with her sleeve. “What’s that _smell_?” she asked, almost not wanting to know as the memory of what Kevin was capable of rose in the back of her mind.

Carlos plugged his own nose and peered into the room cautiously, but nothing seemed obviously amiss. “Um, I don’t know,” he admitted, and took a few steps in, while the other two followed reluctantly. They’d entered the kitchen instead of the lunchroom, and it became obvious before too long that the last lunch that had been served was still mouldering and rotting in metal serving trays, waiting for students to come for it.

“Well it’s um, actually worse than the food was before. Surprisingly,” Carlos remarked, eyeballing some weird blue-looking sandwiches. It was all pretty hazy, since he wasn’t wearing his glasses, but he figured maybe that wasn’t so bad.

With a weird giggle, Megan asked, “Is there anything not poisonous here?”

“Oh, sure, should be um. Maybe… not in the fridge, let’s not try that, the power’s probably off and it’ll be bad too,” Carlos mused, heading instead for the cabinets that housed the school’s supply of dried goods. An unimaginable amount of potato chips awaited behind the first cabinet door. “These still are good I bet.”

He moved to the next cabinet while Megan was picking through the fun-sized bags of corn chips and Nacho Cheese Explosions and deciding what she’d most like to go for.

The next cabinet had contained a lot of bread, mostly wheat. Which is to say, the next cabinet now contained a lot of snakes. Megan yelped and jumped back as a huge boa fell out of the overhead cabinet and landed in the pile of chip bags.

Carlos stumbled and fell flat on his ass, staring as the legless reptiles piled out of the cabinet and fell, dead, onto the floor. It appeared they had probably been dehydrated by the desert heat and lack of access to water.

His voice almost failed him as he let out a quiet, confused squeak: _“Snakes?”_

“Wheat and wheat by-products, I’d guess,” Dana muttered as way of an explanation. She helped Carlos to his feet again. “At least they look dead.”

“Mummified,” Carlos agreed, quietly approaching the pile of dried out snakes. He picked up a specimen he thought looked rather like a rattlesnake, and was very glad at that moment that it wasn’t alive.

“Are any of the chips wheat free do you think?” Megan asked, opening a bag of plain potato chips to reveal a lot of very small and equally dried snakes.

He stared at the newest mystery of the world until his senses returned to him, then nodded. “There’s a gluten-free selection. That should be safe, if um. Wow. Is that why Cecil went gluten free? That… that explains a lot, I just thought he was allergic.”

“They don’t always turn into snakes, but they’ve got a certain tendency,” Dana admitted.

Carlos checked the cabinets over, each in turn, producing anything from more snakes to cups of syrupy fruit—of which many were grabbed greedily as part of lunch—to gluten free chips and bread that still looked exactly like normal food.

The trio left the kitchen with their haul and sought out somewhere less smelly to settle down and eat, though in the grand scheme of things, they’d started getting used to the smell of rotten food, anyway. It just didn’t seem really appetizing.

Carlos led the way to a student lounge not too far away, and they sat on tackily upholstered couches and stuffed their faces with sugary peaches and bland chips. Not a word was shared among the group while they ate, it didn’t seem like there was much to bother saying.

After Megan finished first, she excused herself to find a ladies room with intent of seeing if the faucet worked so she could wash her hands and her face and everything more properly. Carlos directed her down the hall, but stayed behind and nursed a bowl of mixed fruit that sort of reminded him of his childhood, if his childhood had involved so much sunburn and death.

Once Megan was out of earshot, Dana asked, “Do you think we’re going to find bodies here?” She didn’t even look up from her food. “I mean, we’re only assuming everyone got out. What if they didn’t?”

Carlos hesitated. “I… I don’t know, I guess if we find it, we find it.”

“Megan is just a kid,” she muttered. “I mean. Not literally a child, we’re all adults, but she’s young, and she’s a friend of mine and I worry, what if Tamika and Roger and everybody didn’t escape?”

After a minute of staring at his hands in dumbfounded silence, Carlos finally replied, “I think they got out. I mean, it really seems unlikely that they didn’t, doesn’t it?”

She laughed sharply. “It doesn’t seem unlikely at all. I spent a very long time trapped here. The only benefit they had to help was Cecil, and well—you know. I don’t know, what if he didn’t snap back out of it?”

Carlos nodded quietly, trying to think the whole thing through. He’d seen Cecil get taken by the Smiling God, and they’d been working on trying to fix it, but… …but he wasn’t sure what had really happened after that. It had gotten pretty hazy, he’d been talking to Cecil and then he wasn’t sure, after. As a scientist, he hated it. It felt like taking bad notes.

“Maybe we can try and work the PA system, if someone hears it, they can come find us,” Carlos suggested.

“I don’t know about that, if anywhere here isn’t safe, that’s probably the least safe place here,” Dana pointed out. “Being a sort of radio system and all.”

“Oh,” Carlos replied. He finished eating his fruit cup, and by then Megan had returned a little more cleaned up and looking more chipper than she had before. The food and the water and the not-being-burned-under-a-scorching-sun-anymore had really done wonders for morale.

She sat down in an ugly chair with a sigh. “My legs are really sore.”

Dana nodded agreement. “It’s a lot of walking. We can sit down for a while though if that’s what you want. I don’t really know what else we can do right now anyway.”

“I’m going to check the campus radio,” Carlos muttered, getting back up. “Maybe if anybody else is still here, we can talk to them over that.”

“Oh but that’s more walking,” Megan complained, but in a half-hearted way, and she stood back up anyway. Dana stood reluctantly, but not without giving Carlos a bit of a look for insisting that they go, despite it being unsafe.

Certainly, she understood the concept that not everything was safe all of the time. But to even just take a little time to relax might have been nice.

And she didn’t know what awaited them in that room, but it couldn’t possibly be good.

Led by Carlos, the trio started back toward the broadcasting station, the thought of it itching at all of their minds like there was something they were meant to be remembering from it. Something about things that had happened there, maybe, something that had gone wrong, or was it something that had gone right? Carlos thought it felt, oddly, like it might have been very, very good, whatever it was, unless that was something that wasn’t his own mind thinking it.

The door of the recording booth hung ajar, and it was obvious approaching it that some kind of fight had taken place there. Megan started to remember, first, and she hesitated a few feet back from the door. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

Though the door itself looked normal, a sickly yellowish light was coming out from behind it, visible as it hung ajar, though mostly blocked out since the door wasn’t opened that far. Of all the rooms in a school, a recording booth in the middle of the building wasn’t going to have windows to let in the sunlight.

“…I think there’s something in there, Carlos,” Dana muttered, quietly, not approaching any closer. She and Megan were about a yard away from the door, but Carlos had just about reached it. Now he stopped and stood there, trying to see if he could peek into the room without actually entering.

“…it’s… I don’t know, what happened in here?” he asked, and took a few steps back.

Megan answered, “Cecil messed with everyone’s heads—well, the Smiling God, I guess. Kevin I think said he wanted to take it back but…”

Carlos frowned, troubled. “You think Kevin is in there?”

“If he is, I wouldn’t enter anyway,” Dana suggested. “I don’t remember what happened—do you know anything else, Megan?”

Megan shifted on her feet, self-conscious now that everything sort of depended on her answer. She finally said, “The Smiling God got loose I think. But I don’t remember after that happened, either. It sort of got all hazy.”

“…you were right, Dana,” Carlos muttered. “There’s another access to the PA system through the president’s office, we can locate that instead. It’ll probably be safer.”

“That sounds good to me,” she replied. “Lead the way.”

For a few tense moments, the ladies both stared at Carlos, who didn’t move away from the door any further. It became increasingly obvious that he wasn’t going to.

“You need to show us where to do, Carlos,” Dana remarked, voice tense.

“I—I know. I just. I want to see what’s… I can’t deal with not knowing,” Carlos whined, looking back at the door, and the aura of light coming from around it. “I’m a scientist, we figure things out, that’s just what we _do_.”

Dana scowled. “This isn’t scientist work, this is the Smiling God we’re dealing with, and—if you become dangerous. If you’re dangerous, I’ll have to kill you too. You know that.”

He nodded. “I know. I’ll be careful.”

With that, he opened the door and made his way in, each step slow and deliberate until he saw Dr. Kayali curled by the door to the broadcasting booth, as if frozen in permanent pain. There was enough blood around her she couldn’t have possibly survived it, but he ran over closer, and realized as he did so that something else was wrong.

Carlos let out a cry as something grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the booth, bathed in so much light he couldn’t think straight.


	61. Back in the Desert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang gets split up when they land back in the desert otherworld.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a short one this time.

“Kevin. Kevin, move if you’re alive, or something.”

With Roger’s voice splitting through the silence of the desert, Kevin let out a quiet groan in response. He spit out a mouthful of sand and rolled onto his back, glad momentarily that he couldn’t see a fucking thing, he never wanted to see that fucking desert again, but damn if he didn’t know he was right back where he started.

“You alright, man?” Roger asked, then without waiting for a response, “You’re the first one I’ve found, I guess maybe we got through first. Since uh, we went through first.”

Kevin didn’t sit up. “I’m peachy,” he replied.

“We’ve gotta look for the others.” Roger reached down to help him up, a bit glad that Kevin seemed to still be regaining some strength after everything that happened. He really, _really_ didn’t want to have to carry Kevin through the desert.

For the moment, both of them were standing, and that was good. Kevin, if he’d had eyes, would have looked like he was staring at his feet. His third eye stared glossily down.

Roger started walking, and waited a moment to be followed. “You uh. You coming?” he asked after a moment, quite sure that Kevin had figured out how to follow people before, but… well, how well _could_ he see with that weird eye of his?

Though he started following, Kevin’s steps were reluctant. He trailed a few feet behind Roger, close enough to make out his movement and know where to go, but not much else. Not that it really mattered much. Roger just kept an eye out for the other two, or some sign of someone else, maybe a masked figure that could tell them where the others were, or like. Something. Anything. Whatever.

“Do you think it’s worth it?” Kevin asked at length.

Roger glanced back at him. “Is what worth it?”

“I don’t know, it.”

A silence followed then, which started with Roger not knowing how to answer, continued with Kevin not pressing for an answer, and ended with mild discomfort on both ends. They just kept walking.

Sooner or later, they’d figure out where the hell the other two were, or something.

 

* * *

 

Tamika tumbled out of the Void in roughly the same place and time as Cecil, except unfortunately he was the one who landed on top of her.

“Agh—get—Cecil, you need to—”

She shoved him off. Void lag wasn’t a thing to be trifling with when it came to forming coherent sentences, and he’d get off much faster with hands than words pushing him. Cecil took a few moments to come to himself, blinking up at the light that shined down from a nonspecific source in the sky overhead. It wasn’t so much like a sun, he thought, but like a glowing haze that took over the entirety of the—and then Tamika was sitting up next to him, and he dropped that line of thought.

“That wasn’t that rough before,” Cecil muttered, sitting up a moment later. “I don’t think the Void is very happy with us.”

Tamika scoffed. “Well, you speak for it, I think you are the most likely one here to really understand what sort of emotions are there. Do you see the others?”

Cecil looked around a moment, then replied, “I still don’t have my glasses.”

“Okay, but they aren’t going to be the same color as the sand, Cecil,” she pointed out. “You can at least use your powers of deduction to figure out if you see something moving.”

“I don’t,” he answered, then stood up on shaky legs.

Tamika helped herself up, frowning at the blank expanse of desert to every side of them. “We all entered at roughly the same time, how far could they have gotten?”

“The Void doesn’t always place people in the same location, Tamika,” Cecil sighed. “When I came here before with—with Carlos. We both were separated, I think maybe it’s fortunate that the two of us weren’t separated. Perhaps we can just solve this problem without—”

She interrupted sharply, “No. You need to stop trying to sabotage up every plan we come up with, Cecil. First, we want to ask Steve for help and you—don’t interrupt me—you tell us not to, even though you _know_ that he has information he’s legally not supposed to have access to. Now, we had agreed Kevin was going to be the one who received new bloodstones if anyone did. You didn’t see him working before, he really knows a lot about the Smiling God.”

Cecil scowled. “That was if we had _new_ bloodstones bound to someone. Now we’re talking about _my_ bloodstones.”

“What, do you really want to bind the Smiling God to yourself, Cecil?” she snapped.

He hesitated, watching her for a moment before he redirected his gaze. “I don’t trust him not to be pulling something. For all we know, once he gets his hands on my bloodstones, he’ll—I don’t know.”

“You can’t even think of an evil plot for him to be supposedly carrying out. At best, you’re attempting to drive up my suspicion so that I’ll agree with you that Kevin isn’t to be trusted. In the grand scheme of things, I don’t think you’re much better.” She folded her arms across her chest, staring up at him even as he tried not to make eye contact.

“We’re friends, Tamika, you know that,” Cecil insisted.

She frowned. “Are we, Cecil? You know, I always knew there was a lot that we didn’t know about you, I mean, you’re the Voice of Night Vale, that’s not exactly like—nobody needs to know _everything_ , we’re really not supposed to know everything, but. I grew up hearing your voice, we all did. Words of wisdom and support and advice to help us get through trying times and—…I really thought better of you.”

Cecil didn’t answer.

“You were _there_ , for every street cleaning day. Speaking to us, your voice giving us strength to carry on when people went missing, telling us not to give up when we couldn’t recognize ourselves in the mirror because we were still, fundamentally, a human being. You celebrated _me_ , me and my friends, all of us when we defeated the librarians and got out and—you tried to keep us _safe_ against Strex and… you spoke us all through the resistance, the rebellion. Everybody loved you, Cecil. Trusted you.”

He answered quietly, “All of that is still true.”

“Is it though? Is it really?” she snapped. “How many things that went wrong were your doing in the first place? Are you just guiding us through so that the _chosen_ of us survive while you pick off the rest?”

“That’s not—Tamika, that isn’t how it works,” he argued.

She kept going. “I don’t know if you’re telling me the truth though, Cecil! I mean, okay, you probably didn’t cause the Strex thing but what about everything else that happens? I mean, it’s _mighty_ convenient that the glow cloud—allhail—appears right when you need it, not that I’m unhappy that it came. It’s really convenient how things always work out in your—”

“My favor?” he interrupted. “Is that what you think is happening, Tamika? Alright, I’ll admit, I have made my fair share of mistakes. Now it’s time for _you_ not to interrupt _me_. Some things I’ve done—okay, I’m not proud. Often, I think I would like to go back and say, Cecil? Hey, Cecil? Maybe you shouldn’t do this thing you’re about to do.

But I don’t… get to just do that, I mean. Maybe I could. If I tried hard enough. Sometimes. Not even always. But who can really expect to change the world?” He sighed.

“Don’t wax philosophical on me, Cecil,” Tamika grumbled. “You literally, physically, definitely change the world around you.”

“Okay, but I don’t always want to, Tamika,” he whined. “You have to understand, I can’t control everything that happens, and _sure_ I can lead the town to safety—and I have. I have led everyone to safety many, many times against… admittedly, often things that were caused by my… presence.”

Tamika scowled. “You need to be honest with people about that, Cecil. I thought… all this time—and Roger thought, and… and Megan and Dana and Janice and… and Earl, and even _Steve_ , and all of us—okay, _all_ of us—we all thought that… you were protecting us, Cecil.”

“I am,” Cecil insisted.

She shook her head. “Against yourself? Not very well.”

“Well I… want to,” he murmured. “Maybe you’re right, this has all gotten very out of hand. And I know, things are bound to get out of hand sometimes, after all we only have so many hands to—”

“You damn well know I’m right, Cecil,” she interrupted, lest he go off on a tangent.

Cecil looked away when he answered, “Alright. You’re right. And… I’m sorry, Tamika.”

Tamika watched him a moment, scrutinizing silently with a frown on her face and words in the back of her mind that she decided not to share. She looked away instead and ordered, “Come on. We need to find the others, and we can figure out where we’re going from there.”

He nodded quietly, and started in a direction that he thought felt promising, hoping that his guess would be close enough. Tamika followed in silence.

 

* * *

 

“Are you going to chase me away if I turn evil again?”

“I already said, I don’t know, Kevin. It depends how evil you mean.”

Some part of Roger was by now beginning to regret Kevin’s regained energy. On the one hand, it did mean he wouldn’t need to be carried, and that was always a plus. On the other hand, he kept breaking the silence between them with uncomfortable questions that Roger didn’t know a single answer to that wasn’t just vague uncertainties.

Like, for example, the next question that followed; “How evil do I have to be for you to try and get rid of me? I don’t want to be here again in this desert.”

Roger shrugged uselessly. “I don’t know, if you’re dangerous I guess? If you’re dangerous, then you have to go.”

They walked in silence for a minute or two.

“Well, I can control the Smiling God a lot better than Cecil can. What if I’m only a little bit dangerous? Is that okay?” Kevin asked.

“Define a ‘little bit’ dangerous.”

Kevin refused to offer a definition, and they lapsed into silence again.

“I think I’ve done a lot to try and help you guys out,” Kevin pointed out eventually. “The least I want is just to not be forgotten and stuck here forever. That was… …a low point.”

Roger grimaced. “If you’re dangerous though that’s… I don’t know, I don’t get why Tamika won’t be like, honest with you. If this shit goes really south, like… and it all comes down to it and we’ve got no way to fix shit for everyone, we’re gonna ditch you.”

“I already knew that,” Kevin muttered. “I just hoped I sort of know it with the confidence of a person who doesn’t know anything, instead of somebody who does. I don’t want to be stuck here ever again.”

After what felt like forever, Roger issued a small, quiet, “I’m really sorry, Kevin.”

He received no answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one of my resolutions for 2017 is to get this story finished sooner rather than later, so that people don't have to keep waiting on it forever, ha. should be more chapters soon!


	62. Belief in a Smiling God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos encounters what waits in the broadcasting booth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SORRY.
> 
> tw: body horror, gore
> 
> synopsis in the end notes!

Carlos rubbed at his eyes, blinking into the light like he could somehow see through it if he just... willed it to be less blinding, or something, but that wasn't happening at all. It was like staring at the sun. He was quite sure someone had told him something about staring at the sun at least a few times as a child, maybe that he shouldn't do it because it would hurt his eyes.

Oddly, it wasn't hurting his eyes.

He felt around on the floor to determine his surroundings. There were shards of something, maybe stone, that luckily weren't sharp enough to hurt himself on. It felt like there was some strange, flaky substance on the floor, dried out by the desert heat, he wasn't sure what it had once been and couldn't see to make it out. (He hoped it wasn't like, whatever Cecil's weird blood was made of, or something. Or actually, he hoped it wasn't _anyone's_ blood.)

When Carlos' hand felt flesh, he let out a cry, despite himself, and jerked his hand back. “Hello? Who's there—who—are you okay?”

Gingerly, he reached back out, feeling along the floor until he grabbed what felt like somebody's wrist. Okay, okay, he was going to be a scientist about this. He felt for where their shoulders were and started shaking them. “Hey, are you alright??”

A voice called from outside the room; Dana. “Is everything okay in there, Carlos?”

The sound snapped him back into reality, grounded him. He hadn't left the world and entered some strange land of light and incomprehensible sensation. He was just in the broadcasting booth, and that was all, and he had his hands on somebody's bare shoulders but they weren't moving.

“I—I don't know!” he called back. “There's someone in here!”

“Is it anyone we know?” Dana asked.

Carlos frowned, trying to squint through the light and get a look at... who was he holding onto? “I don't know, I can't see it's—it's really bright in here!” he replied. “I'll bring them out?”

He carefully tried to pick up the body—he was quite sure it was just a dead body by now—but found that he couldn't move it. As he tried, something held them still, whoever they were. He groped around and realized that somehow, it felt like they'd gotten tangled in the wires from all of the radio equipment.

“Oh. Shoot, I'll have you out in a minute,” he muttered quietly to the figure, still unsure of who he was dealing with. As his hands followed the cords to work out where they were knotted, he suddenly felt his fingers slip into the figure's chest, where there should not have been a hole. A hand finally lashed out and slapped his away.

“That's enough,” the voice answered. Hoarse, oddly altered, a little bit mechanical and coming from a broken speaker on the floor. Also unmistakably Avery.

Carlos jerked back quickly. “Avery? Are you—why is it so bright in here?” he asked. “It doesn't seem like there are any windows, I mean, there shouldn't be windows in a radio booth, right, you want it to be kind of soundproofed I'd think and windows sort of wouldn't be able to be soundproofed, I mean unless there was soundproofing glass but it's in the middle of the building anyway and—”

The light cut out abruptly, but he couldn't focus his eyes in what now seemed like an extremely dark room any better than he could when it was very bright. Carlos rubbed at his eyes, and he was sure now with his hands close enough to his nose, that he could smell blood, and that everything on the floor was probably blood.

And then he realized that he'd, in essence, shoved half of his hand into his former intern's chest. Carlos lowered his hands shakily from his face. “Avery, what happened?”

“Nothing that can't be fixed with a better alternative,” they replied mechanically. “Now that you're here, and—oh, I'm glad you came back. Really relieved.”

The room had come a little bit back into focus now, enough so that Carlos was starting to make out shapes, though he couldn't see anything in detail without his glasses anyway. The radio equipment was strewn about the room, speakers, microphones, cords all in places they shouldn't have been in an organized sound booth. Avery, draped almost-limply over the rolling base of the chair, appeared half covered in wires, themself. He couldn't make out their face or anything, but could see what looked like odd, gold-colored markings over their exposed skin like some kind of bizarre tattoo. It was like some kind of tattoo. He wasn't sure why their shirt was off. The markings were vaguely glowing, vaguely shifting, in an odd way, it reminded him of Kevin's tattoos.

“A-avery, what did they do to you?” Carlos asked, voice starting to shake as he really took in the scene.

Dana's voice broke through again; she still wasn't following, however. “Carlos? Who are you talking to?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but Avery interrupted quickly, “Don't.”

Carlos listened. He wasn't sure why. And he watched as Avery slowly, painstakingly sat up, looking small and helpless, as though held aloft by some force other than their own strength. He realized, as the room came more into focus, that they had their eyes closed, and that there were three of them, or so it looked, in any case.

His hands shot up to muffle the sound that almost escaped his lips on realizing. Carlos wasn't sure what he'd missed, he must have missed a lot.

“I'm so sorry,” he whimpered through his fingers. “I'm—I'm so sorry, Avery, I...”

Their expression broke out into a smile. “Now, why would you be sorry? It's only a temporary state, Dr. C. I'm not even the intended vessel.”

Carlos hesitated. “Not the...?” He lowered his hands again, slowly. “Are... am I talking to Avery, r-right now...?”

“More or less,” they replied, lurching forward a bit to lean toward him. As they adjusted themself, the wires constricted some of their movements, enabled others. Everything was sort of vanishing underneath their skin, like the radio equipment itself was powering them, but he thought as they leaned forward that he saw something else hidden behind the wires that tangled over their chest. The mass of cords pulsed like a human heart.

He vaguely recalled the hole torn through Dr. Kayali's chest, he'd only had moments to look her over before being pulled into the room by...

Now that he had a better look around, Carlos was quite sure that the only thing that possibly could have grabbed him were the cords from the radio equipment. Like the equipment itself was the power and the force behind everything that was happening right now.

Avery interrupted his thoughts, “I know this is a lot to take in, Dr. C. But, listen. You're here now, and I couldn't be happier. _We_ couldn't be happier. I wasn't sure if anyone would ever come back to this desert and—oh, the masked figures are really just nothing, after all. Not suitable for a vessel in the least.” They sighed.

“A vessel for the—...for the Smiling God,” Carlos stammered.

Their face broke out into a full grin now. “Yes, _yes_ , you're getting it now, Dr. C. You all left and, see, the Smiling God just wanted a vessel. But you all left them—you left me—you left us behind. With nothing but Dr. K and me and, well, a _lot_ of bodies, but most of those were pretty old anyway, so not much use for... sorry, am I boring you?”

Carlos had begun to back away as Avery spoke, trying to make his way back toward the exit. He wasn't sure what he was dealing with right now, what the Smiling God could do to him or why it _hadn't_ already, because he'd seen it do horrible things to Cecil and he didn't want to think about what it could do to him.

The door closed itself, as well as it could, behind him.

“I'm sorry, Dr. C, but it's _incredibly_ fucking rude to just walk away like that while I'm talking to you,” Avery intoned from the speaker slightly to their left. Their mouth wasn't moving except to grin, almost baring their teeth at him more than anything.

“Wh-what... what do you want from me?” Carlos asked.

They heaved a dramatic sigh, and the speakers in the room all crackled. “If you would just listen. Wow. You're worse at listening than I ever was in class.” At the twist in his expression, they laughed. “Yes, I have access to all of Avery's memories in here. Oof. This must be very hard for you to see. You two were friends.”

“Avery is dead,” Carlos near-whispered, refusing now to look at them.

That only made them laugh again. “Idiot. Avery isn't dead. They aren't... ideal, however. You know, I think I almost miss that first little toy, well, he wasn't very _fun_ anymore, but I don't think I like your idea of fun anyway.”

“Then go away,” Carlos snapped. “We never wanted you here to begin with.”

“I won't,” they replied. “I just need a better vessel, this one is—...unfortunately weak.”

At that, something grabbed Carlos again, and he determined that it _wasn't_ , in fact, any kind of radio equipment, but just the empty air itself, like the air now had hands or something—who ever heard of an air with hands? But he tried to pull away and wasn't even sure what he was pulling away from, as he was tugged closer to Avery again.

They reached out with shaky, jerking motions and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt to pull him in closer. “You aren't even any better,” they hissed, this time from their mouth instead of the radio equipment. Carlos had a split second to consider that Avery sounded _terrified_ , and then he was pinned roughly against the floor. “But you might work as bait.”

“B-bait?” he asked, bewildered at how easily he was held down, like the small figure pinning him was much stronger than their battered body looked. He was sure it must have somehow been the Smiling God itself, doing it, or at least it seemed so.

Avery opened their eyes for a moment, and the room was again bathed in blinding light so fast that Carlos couldn't even react to try and shut it out.

Strangely, it didn't seem to do anything except hurt a bit to look at from this close a range. Carlos closed his eyes. Nothing monumental happened.

“God _damn_ it,” they sputtered after a moment, closing their eyes again, or at least their two real eyes. The robotic eye that Kevin had left them with stayed open this time, watching Carlos but emitting no light. Avery looked away moodily. “This body can't even do anything right. No. You're going to have to stay here, with me, and wait.”

Carlos stared up at them, unsure what to say for a moment. “Is... is Avery still in there?” he asked finally.

They scoffed. “Of course. What good is a vessel without a mind?”

“Can... can I talk to them?” he asked.

“Why would I grant you that sort of request?”

Carlos sighed. Of course, of course he wouldn't get to talk to his old intern again. “I just wanted to tell them I was sorry. That they got wrapped up in all of this and um... I guess I ruined their life, I ruined a lot of people's lives, getting them stuck with this because... because I wasn't thinking like a scientist. I was thinking like a... a stupid person.”

They laughed. “You're all stupid people.”

“You don't sound much like a god, you know,” Carlos pointed out.

That got a scowl out of them. They still wouldn't look in his direction. “I'm not a god, you idiot. I'm—I'm the Great Unraveling, the—the end of all things—I'm nothingness, an abyss, the fate that you all—stop that.”

Carlos bit down on his lip to stifle a laugh that he wasn't sure sounded right coming from him right now. Why was he laughing? God, when had this all gotten too weird to take seriously? He replied quickly, “Sorry I just. I—I don't know, this is. This is all really horrible and awful and I'm probably going to die and Avery is already dead and there's blood everywhere and my boss is dead outside and we're in the middle of some—I don't know where we are! I have no idea where we are and I—I don't know!”

Avery—or the Smiling God—or whoever, looked back down at Carlos with furrowed brows, robotic eye focusing poorly on him.

He kept going, sinking further and further into hysterics as he went along. “Look, I—I try to be a good scientist, I'm open to new ideas but, there's all this weird stuff, there's phones that spit out stormclouds and people with three eyes and tentacles and _I slept with one of them_! I slept with an alien! And there's giant people with no faces and they can't talk because it'll hurt your ears and people can keep walking with their hearts torn out and there's some _stupid_ weird _Smiling God_ thing and you talk like a _video game villain_. It's so cheesy! Look at you, you're so cheesy!”

They looked down at themself, scowling. “I'm not _cheesy_. This vessel is just small and fragile—the change wasn't complete enough to—”

“Listen to yourself talk!” Carlos cackled. He tried to mimic the tone of their voice, going as monotone as he could through his laughter, “ _This vessel is small and fragile_.” He stifled another giggle. “ _I just need to wait for a proper vessel so I can finish destroying the world, I'll use you as bait in my evil world domination plan_.”

They just stared at him, silent.

“I mean, look at yourself! Listen to yourself!” Carlos wheezed. “You don't even sound _real_ , none of this sounds real! You had me going for a while I'll admit it! God, this is. This is... the _weirdest_ fucking dream I've ever had.”

They opened their mouth to speak, then shut it again. Then opened it again. Then said nothing. Carlos, in the meantime, was trying to calm back down again, still laughing hard enough that tears were streaming down his face.

Finally, he was quiet again. They asked, “Are you quite done now?”

It was the wrong question. Carlos burst out into giggles again, wishing his hands weren't restrained so he could try and quiet his laughter. “No, no, I'm—I'm not _quite done now_.”

“Fine,” they snapped. “You can talk to your friend.”

“Ooh, ooh, how are you gonna do that?” Carlos asked through laughter. “Are you—you—wait wait let me. You're gonna do some _horror movie thing_ and their voice can come out of the speakers and be like, 'oooh, help me Carlos, I'm dying, save me.' Except—except—I won't fall for it! Because they're already _dead_ and you killed them!” At the end, his laughter had given way to screaming in Avery's face.

Their expression shifted slowly from a look of dull disappointment as something changed in them, as they realized what was going on, where they were. As Carlos watched Avery's face contort into a mix of fear and pain, he went silent. They opened their eyes to look around, and the room was bathed in bright light.

“...are... is that you, Avery?” he asked hesitantly.

“Wh-what's.” Their voice came out shaky, on the verge of tears already. “Dr. C? Why is this—why. _Why_?”

Carlos felt his blood run cold. A final indignity to his former intern—his friend. “Avery I'm sorry I—I wanted to talk to you again I—”

“ _Why?!”_ they interrupted, the speakers crackling and popping as they cried out. A loud tone filled the silence until the speaker fizzled out and died.

He tried carefully to take a hold of Avery's hands, just to get a better gauge of where they were. “Listen, we can figure out some way to—”

Avery socked him in the face. “You did this to me!” they howled. “You _ruined_ my _life_!” They pulled back to hit him again, but doubled over instead, in pain as the feeling came back in their chest. The weight of the cords seemed to pull against them, they thought they could feel something dug into everywhere, their body felt heavy.

The room came back into focus as they clamped their eyes shut, whimpering, arms wrapped around themself in shuddering pain. “Y-you did this to me,” they sputtered, now starting to cry. “Y-you did this to me.”

Carlos wiped at his split lip, and he tried to sit up again and found now that nothing else was holding him down except the weight of Avery sitting on top of him. His arms now free, he tried to pull Avery in for a hug, but they moved quickly away from him.

“I'm sorry,” he muttered, “I didn't... I didn't ever want you getting hurt.” He wiped at his eyes a bit, too, aware that he was probably smearing blood with his own tears.

They gave no answer, the only sound in the room now their sobbing, cut off with wheezing coughs and whimpers.

Carlos traced the line of cords with his eyes, trying to figure out just where Avery was connected, to what they were connected, and how any of this even _worked_ , but he just... couldn't. He didn't know. This wasn't science anymore, and it hadn't been for a long time.

So he knew nothing he could do to help anymore. He reached over, cautiously, and laid his hand on Avery's back. They jerked away once, twice, but not a third time. So he said nothing else, then, and rubbed their back as they cried themself into coughing fits.

He tried to be comforting, as well as he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaaaaaaaand that is something i've been waiting to write for a while but just didn't have the energy to get through the preceeding set-up for it.
> 
>  
> 
> the customary synopsis:
> 
> When Carlos is pulled into the broadcasting booth, he initially can't see a dingdong thing because it's really bright, like, Smiling God bright. However, he doesn't seem to be under any kind of mind control. He feels around to figure out what's happening, and feels a body. While investigating, Dana calls out to ask him if he's alright, and he says he's going to try and bring the body out, since he can't tell who it is but they clearly don't seem to be moving. He figures out that, whoever it is, they're tangled in cords, so not easy to remove from the room, and while trying to remove the cords, he realizes that they have a hole in their chest.  
> They slap his hand away and tell him that's enough, and he recognizes the voice as Avery. Immediately, Carlos is trying to ask if they're alright, trying to ask what's going on. He says that it's too bright to see, and the lights then go out, which seems to be connected to Avery's eyes being open--much like how Cecil and Kevin could let out the light of the Smiling God through their third eye.  
> As they talk, it becomes apparent that the Smiling God has taken over Avery, and isn't very happy about it, citing that they aren't a very suitable host, but that the other hosts are worse and they couldn't use and of the masked army as vessels. Carlos realizes that the wires on Avery are what's holding them up, and they are also underneath their skin and apparently protecting the hole in their chest. Where their heart had been torn out before by Cecil, they've now replaced it--with Dr. Kayali's, as she had hers removed. There is no explanation of how they managed this with nobody else around to do it, and Avery barely able to hold themself up.  
> The Smiling God tells Carlos that he's going to be used as bait, then attempts to brainwash him, bathing him in blinding light. It doesn't work. They curse that Avery's body can't do anything right, and seem rather moody over it. Carlos asks if Avery is still in there, and if there's any way he can talk to them to apologize for ruining their life.   
> The Smiling God refuses, telling Carlos that he's an idiot. Carlos tells them they don't sound much like a god, so they go into a dramatic spiel about how they aren't a god, but are the Great Unraveling, and Carlos finally snaps. He just started laughing hysterically, crying out that nothing makes sense, that phones are making weather, he fucked a guy with three eyes and tentacles, and he's talking to some dramatic god that sounds like a video game villain. Thought the Smiling God tries to shut him up, he just keeps going until they finally relent and tell him he can speak to Avery. Even this, he takes as a joke, assuming that they're going to pull some horror movie thing and make Avery's terrified voice come out of the speakers.  
> Instead, Avery really is put back in control, and is immediately upset and scared at what's going on. They start out demanding answers, but very quickly switch to yelling blame at Carlos for ruining their life. He tries to comfort them, but they punch him in the face and then double over sobbing. At length, he tries again, and quietly rubs their back while they cry, knowing that he can do nothing else.
> 
>  
> 
> boy oh boy, wasn't that a fun chapter. shouldn't be too much longer now, folks. but I've said that a few times.
> 
> as always, thanks for reading, and I long for your anguished comments and kudos! :D


	63. Come Out, Come Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dana and Megan decide that it's time to cut their losses and leave, but have some trouble exiting the University.

Dana and Megan shared a nervous look at the sound of Carlos yelling in the other room, or was he... was he _laughing_? It had become obvious by now that he was talking to somebody, though they couldn't tell who, and now he was _laughing_ about something.

They didn't dare enter, not with that strange light that came out of the room, not with Carlos laughing like that.

“It must be the Smiling God,” Megan muttered.

Dana nodded agreement, and grabbed the younger woman's arm to lead her away. They had to put some space between themselves and Carlos quickly, before he decided to pursue them. If the Smiling God had gotten a hold of him, well, it wouldn't be good, anyway.

“He shouldn't have gone in there,” Dana said once they'd gotten a little further away. “I warned him—we both warned him. Alright. That's fine, between the two of us... we still know more about any of this all than he did.”

Megan frowned. “I don't know anything. I know about Night Vale, not... wherever _this_ is.”

“I know a bit about the desert,” Dana reassured. “I've been here before, it just took a lot of walking. I eventually found my way out.” She frowned. “We'll figure it out eventually. We should take some food and water with us and just go.”

Megan glanced back in the direction they'd come. “And just leave him behind? I mean, I guess if he's... I guess it makes sense, yeah.” She wasn't happy about it, though.

“I know, Megan. I know. But you know how that thing is, we all know how it is. If we go, and we get exposed to it too, then nobody can do _anything_ to try and help anyone. If we get out—or maybe we can find where Cecil went, or something. He should be able to help, he should know. Or his brother. One of them.”

“I guess if we find help,” Megan replied, but both of them knew they were just trying to get away alive. That was just how life was, sometimes. If people willingly walked into a situation that destroyed them, then there was no sense in willingly following them. And they had, after all, both warned him not to.

The pair made their way back toward the cafeteria, hoping to raid the kitchen for anything they could take with them. Dana knew it could be a very long time of wandering, and sometimes it really didn't seem like the desert was that dry and that hot and that endless, but sometimes it really, really did. And she knew they had to be prepared.

Back in the kitchen, they both tried to ignore the stench of spoiled food, and Megan tied a bundle with an apron and filled it with cans and cups of fruit, and Dana piled together all the wheat-free breads and chips she could find. Anything safe to eat and take with, especially anything that wasn't too dry.

“Do you think they've got any water bottles we can fill up?” Megan asked, looking around. It didn't seem like that was the sort of dishware in here. There were mostly just sectioned-off trays and plenty of utensils, some of which sat mouldering in a sink full of water.

Dana tugged the remaining cabinets open in turn, and managed to produce some small bottles of juice, but no empty bottles for water. She took these anyway; Megan had started preparing another bundle to go.

“I've been on school campuses before,” Dana remarked. “They usually have a gift shop, we can probably find something there if it hasn't been taken over by any sentient haze.”

Megan nodded, agreeing with the logic of that. She finished her second bundle, and tied them both together to carry. “Here, I've got whatever you don't wanna carry,” she offered, holding out her hand to take Dana's supplies.

“Oh, you don't have to.”

“It's fine, I won't get tired,” Megan insisted. “This body is pretty strong, remember? I'm a lot bigger than I was as a little girl.” She cracked a sheepish smile, and Dana finally relented and passed over her smaller, lighter package full of bready goods. Dana finished another once-over, never opening the fridge or inviting any other bad smells, and then they exited out into the hall again.

“We should try and find someplace with a map or something, maybe. Or just look for the gift shop, I suppose,” Dana suggested. “I expect it to be somewhere near the outside of one of the buildings, nobody would want to get gifts from the middle of the school.”

“We'll find it,” Megan replied, and just started walking. They'd figure it out eventually, she reasoned, and then they could fill up their bottles at the drinking fountain and get going. Maybe they'd find something in the gift shop in the way of a hat, too. Maybe some other stuff to block out the sun; Megan was still very sunburnt and not too happy about it.

As they started on their way again, the intercom sparked to life, fizzling and popping dramatically as a voice came through, distorted.

“I've just been told we aren't alone in the building,” Avery's voice called out, echoing through the empty halls. “To that I would like to say, come out, come out, wherever you are.”

Megan paled at the sound, which Dana understood only halfway as terrifying as she looked over. “Wasn't that... the intern?” she asked.

“Avery,” Megan breathed. “They're _dead_. I—I saw it, back—you and Carlos were brainwashed and—ooh, how could I forget?” She looked down the hall again, back in the direction they'd come from, though the broadcasting booth had long since receded into the distance. They hadn't gotten away, though—not unnoticed, anyway.

Dana grabbed her arm. “Forget the water, we've got enough, let's go. If we get out of here—maybe we can find the masked figures out in the desert, maybe we can just leave.”

Unwilling to argue with that, Megan followed dutifully, both of them picking up the pace as they went. The speakers crackled again before their next transmission. “I know you're out there, I can _feel_ you out there.”

“How can they do that?” Megan hissed quietly to Dana.

“I think they're lying,” Dana insisted, but sped up faster, anyway. This place was a bad enough maze inside, she only hoped they were headed in the right direction to get out quickly—out any door, it didn't matter, just as long as they were free.

By the time the third message went out through the school, they'd both broken into a run. Avery's voice called out only louder, “You know where I am, just come and we'll settle this and be done!”

Finally, as they reached the end of a hallway, Dana and Megan turned a quick corner to redirect, and collided in a full-on sprint with Tamika and Kevin. Tamika responded quickly enough to keep herself and Dana on their feet; Megan bowled over Kevin effortlessly, and then both of them toppled into Cecil and took him down next. Roger, trailing behind, breathed a sigh of relief as the whole collision missed him.

“Wh-what are you—” Dana started to say at the same time as Tamika blurted out:

“You're alright!”

She threw her arms around Dana in a tight hug, and Dana reciprocated, looking to each of the others in turn. Roger, now realizing who'd arrived, brightened considerably. He helped Megan back off of Cecil and Kevin.

“Is Carlos with you?” Cecil asked, helping Megan stand before he stood, himself.

Kevin just groaned and laid there for a minute, waiting to regain his senses as the others talked. While Roger and Megan were hugging next, Tamika pulled Kevin to his feet and dusted him off. He nodded quietly, and she didn't say anything either, looking to Megan and Dana for answers about what had happened.

“Carlos was with us,” Dana sighed, “But he went into that radio booth. I think the Smiling God is in there.”

“You let Carlos go _in_ there?” Cecil accused. “How could you just—”

“He's a grown man, Cecil,” Dana snapped. “He has control of himself. We told him not to, but he wanted to anyway.”

The two of them stared each other down for a moment before the speakers came to life again, sounding like they were having increasingly more electrical trouble. “If you don't feel like coming, perhaps I'll just have to use this scientist as a vessel,” Avery droned. “Wouldn't _that_ just be a terrible waste of a life.”

Cecil's expression twisted. “We need to get there, now!” And he started down the hall without waiting for the others to follow.

Tamika, mid-hug with Megan, called irritatedly after him, “We were already heading in that direction!” She released the other girl and started following. “Hold up, there's no sense in running in alone.”

Seeing Tamika and Cecil start going, Dana followed after. “Wait, why would you want to go _back_ there?” she asked.

By now the whole group had mobilized again, and Megan and Roger were helping Kevin along and talking quietly to each other as they did so. Filling in on past events, each sharing reliefs that the other was alright.

It was Kevin that answered Dana's question; “We're taking care of the Smiling God. For real this time.”

She looked back at him, and slowed her walk to keep pace. “You mean you can get rid of it?” she asked. “Why didn't you get rid of it before?”

“Because we can't,” Kevin grumbled. “But we're doing the best we can, which is to seal it somewhere that it'll stay under control.”

“Where's that?”

He scowled. “I'm taking it back. At least of all of us, I know what the fuck I'm doing.”

Dana said nothing then, watching him a moment before she looked away and just kept walking. If that was what they were doing, she only hoped that part 2 of the plan was sealing Kevin himself away so he wouldn't start tearing people apart again.

She couldn't trust that anything else would work.

Cecil reached the broadcasting booth first, with Tamika only moments behind to try and grab him by the arm and slow him down. “ _Cecil_ , we need to think this through—a plan of approach, nothing ever comes of acting without thinking.”

“That _thing_ has Carlos in there,” Cecil argued. “Carlos! I don't care what it wants from me, I just want to see—”

She slapped him across the face. Hard. “Get a hold of yourself. If it takes you over again, think about what happens _then_. All of us could end up dead anyway, even Carlos. Even if you don't want to, maybe the Smiling God does.”

Cecil started to speak, then stopped, and listened. He nodded, “Alright. You're right.” He was still getting used to saying it. “You're right, what do we do?”

The two of them looked at the door hanging open, entrance to the outer room but not yet the inner booth. It looked almost deceptively safe, considering they knew what was in there. Or at least, had a vague idea of what must have been in there, from what they'd heard.

“We wait for Kevin to catch up, if he can do what he wants with that thing before it has a chance to know what hit it, maybe we can get this all under control,” Tamika explained. The remainder of the group was still a good distance away, slowed by Kevin's unsteady gait, but they were well within sight at least.

“And what if that doesn't _work_?” Cecil challenged.

Tamika rolled her eyes. “You mean like everything else lately? Then we think of something when we get to it—that's the only option we've got, at this point.”

“...then I suppose we'll make the best of it,” Cecil conceded.

They lapsed into silence to wait for the others to catch up, but couldn't stay quiet for long before a voice called from inside the room: Carlos.

“Um, if you guys are out there, I mean, they already know you're out there,” he called to Cecil and Tamika.

Before Tamika had any chance to react, Cecil shoved past her and into the room, quick on his feet like an excited puppy. He called, “Carlos? Are you alright?” but didn't have time to even receive an answer before he'd already entered the booth and saw what lay ahead of him.

Avery was seated on the floor of the room, propped against the wall with no microphone in sight to be broadcasting from. Instead, it seemed like maybe the recording equipment had integrated itself in an entirely different manner; they had wires snaking in under their skin and everything else. Their eyes were closed, and there were three of them, and then Cecil looked away quickly as he saw movement, and spun around just in time to catch Carlos in a hug.

“Cecil, I didn't think you'd come back!” Carlos laughed, relieved as he buried his face in Cecil's shirt, which was much cleaner than anything he, himself, was wearing.

Cecil was almost literally effervescent. “Oh, Carlos, Carlos, I thought you were gone—Carlos, I never thought I'd see you again! I—I wouldn't know what to do with myself, I didn't know what to—”

Tamika cleared her throat to interrupt; she'd followed him in after a moment, at least into the outer room—she wouldn't go another step closer. They both looked over, still holding onto each other.

“Carlos? What's going on in here?” She asked after a moment. “We heard—we thought—I don't know what's going on, but what called us here didn't sound very harmless.” She looked nervously over at Avery, then pulled her eyes away from the gore. Even if they'd hardly known each other, that still wasn't a pleasant fate for anyone.

Carlos pulled back, though Cecil was reluctant to let him go. “Oh, Avery? Yeah they're um. Look actually, we were kind of hoping um. They want to make a deal.” He looked up at Cecil, who just took hold of his face and started kissing him.

Again, Carlos had to pull away. “Hey—hey! Later, Cecil.”

“Laaaater?” Cecil asked with a smirk.

“Yes, later, promise,” Carlos huffed, flustered. “We need to focus.”

Tamika snorted. “Thank you, voice of reason. You said a deal? That doesn't sound like the Smiling God, from what I've heard. At least, I don't think it does.”

Cecil looked back over at Avery, who still hadn't moved. “That's where the Smiling God is now? Why isn't it attacking?”

Avery's voice crackled out of the speakers in the room, “I'm awake you know.”

“Yes, so why aren't you attacking?” Cecil asked.

“Because it can't and also that's Avery um, talking,” Carlos explained.

During the moments of silence that followed, Cecil tried to edge in closer by Carlos again, who was trying to keep some distance and some focus however possible. Tamika just looked back over at Avery, apparently _alive_ somehow, conscious, even.

Then Roger's voice called into the room, “Tamika, Cecil, you guys in here?”

Tamika looked away again and called back, “Yeah, we're fine!” She hesitated before asking, still without looking right at Avery, “He said a deal. What kind of deal, why are you making deals?”

They shrugged, trying to sit up a little straighter as Dana made her way in, with Kevin limping behind her, and Roger at his side. Megan took up the rear, where she could see over everyone's heads anyway.

“Is that where the Smiling God is now?” Dana asked next.

Carlos nodded. “We have established that, yes. Now, I think we need to discuss this because it might be possible to find some sort of solution. I was talking to them earlier and—”

“ _Talking_ to the Smiling God?” Kevin scoffed in disbelief, “And it didn't even brainwash you? The Smiling God never just _talks_ to somebody unless it wants something.”

Avery laughed sharply. “Is that your voice, Kevin?” They leaned forward. “You'll have to pardon me, I can't _see_ very well with my eyes closed. But let me fix that.”

And with that, they opened their eyes again and bathed the room in a blinding light. Tamika dropped to the floor, pulling down whoever was closest, which turned out to be Carlos. He let out a yelp and tried to explain that the light wasn't doing anything, but Cecil called out for him and interrupted, and ended up on the floor as well.

The domino effect continued as everyone tried to block their eyes, tried to duck, tried to keep the light out and protect themselves.

Kevin, for his part, stayed standing, staring blindly at nothing. He snorted. “Are you doing something? Because I can't tell.”

“It didn't work on me before either,” Carlos finally got out.

“Oh, didn't it?” Kevin laughed. “I just thought I was immune after all this time, well, that _is_ really interesting, isn't it? Now, why wouldn't the Smiling God be able to do anything?”

Cautiously, Carlos looked up again; the light was bright, unpleasant to look at, but nothing else came of it. He closed his eyes again anyway. No sense in damaging his retinas. “It's still ineffective,” he explained.

“Well, you really _do_ need to make a deal, don't you?” Kevin asked, a grin spreading across his face. “I don't even know, I don't know if you've got anything you can really _trade_ me that's good enough for whatever you're asking.”

He nudged at somebody's hand on his foot, unsure who was trying to get his attention.

“Avery's still in there,” Carlos complained. “That's not just the Smiling God.”

The smile fell off of Kevin's face. “I had thought you were dead. Or, I suppose, your host, I don't know who I'm talking to at present.”

“I wasn't,” they hissed. “You did that to me—made me into this.”

He tried to nudge off whatever was grabbing his foot again, and this time realized a little late that it wasn't actually a hand at all. Kevin let out a yelp as electrical cords pulled his legs out from under him. He landed against Megan only for a moment before they started to drag him.

“Radio equipment!” he huffed, tugging at the wires to try and free himself. “And what are you going to do, anyway?”

Avery laughed.

Carlos grabbed a hold of Kevin and nudged Cecil hard, gesturing for him to help.

“I'm going to make you regret fucking with me,” Avery insisted. “And then, when I'm done with that, the Smiling God's going to take back what belongs to it.”

“Oh, fuck _that_ ,” Kevin hissed.

By now, Cecil and Carlos were holding him back while Tamika tried to undo the wires with her eyes still shut. Against a group, the attack was pretty pathetic, even as Avery redoubled their efforts to grab him. There just weren't enough cords in the room.

“I thought the plan was for Kevin to take it back anyway?” Dana asked quietly.

Roger shrugged, “I dunno, plan keeps changing.”

Tamika pulled the last cord away and tried to pin it to the floor so it would quit flailing around. “There. Should be good, now.”

Kevin sat back up, looking over in Avery's direction. With his third eye open—the only damn eye he had left—it wasn't quite the visual that everyone else was getting. It cut through the light fairly easily and he saw enough to know that once again, the status quo had changed.

For a bright and blinding and endless light, it was looking pretty weak.

“Listen,” he said to break the silence. “You want a deal? We'll make a deal. But this time, it's on my fucking terms.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally at long last some really anticlimactic shit. there's only so many times that the absolute craziest thing can always happen.
> 
> hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading!


	64. A Deal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin speaks with the Smiling God.

Kevin remembered the first time he'd really spoken to the Smiling God. Sure, he'd been _controlled_ by the Smiling God plenty of times before, he'd come to his senses having done some terrible thing, he'd felt strange impulses and been unable to resist them. All of that was sort of par for the course. He always anticipated being controlled by the Smiling God.

What he hadn't expected the first time it happened was to talk to the Smiling God.

Its voice sounded a lot like his own voice, like the words that he said in his head while he rehearsed things he was meant to be doing or saying. Except he knew he wasn't just rehearsing words, then. They came from somewhere else.

The first words he thought the Smiling God had ever said to him were “You need to do something for me.” He sort of thought that was it, anyway. His memory wasn't really that perfect so it could have been something sort of similar but not those exact words.

From there on, it was just a thing that happened.

He'd be minding his own business, and there would be that voice again, requesting with a firm politeness that he perform certain unsavory tasks. It was a choice, he would be reminded, and he should feel lucky that it was a choice and not simply forced on him.

Sometimes, it was still forced on him. But other times, they came to an arrangement. It turned out the Smiling God didn't really care for the monotony of existence.

Kevin couldn't say in those days that he ever imagined talking to the Smiling God from an outside source, but the two of them sat across from each other in the recording booth, bathed in light. Everyone else had been chased outside, one last request that Kevin would complete for the Smiling God free of charge.

“Have you thought of your demands yet?” they asked Kevin.

“Oh I have a lot of demands for you, for damn sure,” he replied, stepping gingerly over the cords on the floor as he made his way back over. Kevin hoped he'd held up the illusion well enough that he could see what the hell he was doing. His third eye saw mostly in vague shapes and sort of energy signatures, if it could be called that.

(He didn't, of course, consider that Avery or the Smiling God weren't much better equipped than he was. The mostly-blind judging the blind for being more blind, as it were.)

They heaved a heavy sigh. “Then will you just start making them so we can get this over with?”

Kevin laughed, despite himself. “You sound _rather_ in a rush. Really, what's happening here? This Avery thing is a sham, isn't it. You had me going—of course you did. You lie like it's a hobby. You've figured out how to inhabit a corpse.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” they snapped. “I'm not a fucking corpse.”

“Are you even keeping track of which one you're supposed to be acting like?” he asked. “Do you calculate this mentally—how to respond with the most dramatic effect to everything? We have a perfectly rational exchange for a moment or two, and then it surely must be time to get on with the charade again—”

He cut off into a surprised snort as some remnant of the radio equipment tried to grasp his ankle, and then shook it off again. “Am I getting a reaction out of you? _You_ of all entities? Don't you think it's time you drop the act?”

Their fists clenched, but Kevin couldn't make out any fine details enough to see that or the way their expression twisted into frustration, breaking the calm mask they'd been wearing. “I—I'm not an _entity_ , I'm me,” they snapped. “Now make your fucking deal so this thing gets out of my head!”

“Very cute,” Kevin scoffed. “I'll give you my demands—fine. But take me seriously. It's not like anybody else is in the room to witness it. So you don't have to pretend like the intern is still alive—not that I care anyway, because I don't.”

They watched him with their one good eye, third eye too hazy to make out anything, robotic eye too damaged. And they said nothing, and he stared vaguely at the aura-outline that made up where they sat, and nothing happened, and he went on.

“Fine. Demands,” he sighed. “I want your word that you won't keep using me like a weapon. I want to live my life—and that means you don't just use me for your every fucked up whim, don't just... sit there and say 'Oh it looks like you've finally got some people who _might_ be on your side, so now it's time to make sure you go ahead and kill them so you can't—' Okay, I'm not having the conversation with you. I'm not. Because it's done and you're not doing it again. All that's done.”

They scoffed. “And what do you suppose I'll be doing, making scones?”

Kevin scowled. “What good is it killing everything that comes near us anyway? Maybe _you_ get some sort of pleasure out of it but—”

They interrupted him with a sharp laugh. “Now don't deceive yourself, Kevin. I'm sure you would miss it terribly, the feeling. The taste.”

“Look, these people—I don't want to hurt them, they're. My friends. I think. I mean. Okay, they probably aren't my friends, but they've been on my side so far—mostly. I mean. They're...” he trailed off, shifting further away from the Smiling God, or Avery, or whoever.

A smile spread across the other entity's face; Kevin's unease was palpable. “They're not really your friends, Kevin. I would think you, of all people, would understand when somebody is fucking with you. Oh—they're all smiles and kindness until—and then—poof, that's all gone.”

He opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it again.

They kept talking, “You can't trust those people not to turn on you, even for the fear that you _might_ do something, even if you haven't. They'll dispose of you just to know that you can't prove to be a risk.”

“Now _you're_ fucking with me,” Kevin hissed through gritted teeth.

“Am I fucking with you, really? Maybe it's manipulative, but you also know I'm right.”

Kevin said nothing, watching the vague outline of the entity across from him. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen the Smiling God so—so _weak_. It was desperation, he tried to remind himself; that's why they were saying nasty lies. “Well it doesn't do you any good if they throw me back here, does it? Then there's nothing for you to kill anyway.”

“There will _always_ be something to kill,” they laughed. “As surely as that brother of yours keeps sending them here—I have no doubt about that. Of course, I see what you mean. It would be far preferable to leave with the rest of them—think of how many people there would be to have our way with, then. Why, you could paint the town _red_ , my dear Kevin.”

He clenched his fists, steadied his hands. “You—I—we can't just _do_ that. You know that's not how it works, people fight back.”

“So let them! Let them come, what are they going to do, _kill_ you?” Now the grin on their face only grew wider. “You're immortal! Between the two of us, they never stand a—.”

“No.” Kevin relaxed his hands. “I mean it—no! You don't get it, do you?”

The grin fell off their face, twisted into a scowl. “Well this sudden sympathetic heart doesn't look good on you, Kevin.”

“Sympathetic—I don't have one!” he snapped. “I don't have one at all, you're a fucking idiot! What the hell do you think I do, regenerate?”

They scoffed. “It hardly matters if you're still standing.”

“It hurts! Fuck you, fuck you, I'm not just—just some _vessel_ for you to run around and do whatever you want because you don't know that it hurts!” he cried, advancing on them again. “Yeah okay—maybe I'm standing here and. Maybe I found a way and maybe I've still kind of got one eye and I can see like basic stuff and. Maybe it's not as bad as it was when he first did it to me but. You can't keep making me get into that.” His voice cut off suddenly in a sharp inhale and a whimper. “It still _hurts_.”

“Well isn't that fucking sad,” they replied with a snort. “Sorry, no sympathy, look what you fucking did to _me_.” They gestured down at their body, integrated with the radio equipment, bloodied, half unable to really move, or at least to move smoothly enough to stand up.

Kevin snapped at them, “You're inhabiting a corpse! The intern died—stop trying to fuck with me!” His voice wavered and cracked as he cried out.

“Stop acting like I'm dead!” they argued. “I'm talking to you right now!”

“No you're not. The Smiling God can't raise the fucking dead,” he huffed. “Cecil tore your heart out. People don't just _survive_ that, I've done it enough times to know.”

“Well you survived it,” they pointed out.

He snorted. “I'm _immortal,_ I'm not some random fucking intern. Interns _die_.”

They scowled. “I'm right here. Talking to you—I don't know what you fucking did, I just know what fucking happened! I woke up and this—this fucking _thing_ was in my head and—god. Why am I even talking to you. Fucking make your deal, take it back.”

Kevin pursed his lips into a frown. “You're fucking with me. Right? That's—people don't just become immortal like that. I didn't even do anything to you.”

“Didn't do anything!” they cackled. “You didn't do anything! You took my fucking _eye_ out and gave me this—this—whatever fucking broken thing!” They gestured at the robotic eye. “You fucked with my head and you made me give your stupid fucking radio show! You—you fucking _stole_ my body and stuck me in yours and—and I ended up like this anyway! You tore my fucking heart out!”

“Hey, no I didn't!” Kevin finally interrupted. “That was Cecil!”

They shrugged. “Don't fucking care, your name's all over it, if you didn't fucking pick _me_ for your stupid intern—none of this would've happened!”

He grimaced. “If I didn't pick you, you'd probably just be dead.”

“Way better, let me tell you!” they insisted. “Instead of this—god, what the fuck did _you_ do the first time you fucking woke up without a fucking heart?”

Kevin hesitated, raised an eyebrow. “I, uh. That was. What? I told you I don't regenerate. That happened recently. And it really hurt.”

“...no, I mean the first time,” they repeated. “Your first one I mean—look, I'm not an idiot, even _I_ figured out how to fix it. Not that it doesn't hurt but.”

He frowned, moving closer bit by bit, to get a better look despite his horrible vision. “You mean the... with the cords? No, I never did that. I mean I haven't actually... until recently I never really lost many body parts. It's pretty surprising actually. But I'm not bad in a fight, either.”

The two lapsed into silence, with Avery absentmindedly reaching up with shaky hands to grope at the wires where they laced their way into the hole in their chest. The actual moment it had happened, they couldn't... exactly recall, it hadn't seemed too willing at the time, but it had quieted at least a few of the warning bells in their head, not least of all that they _shouldn't be alive_ , but here they were.

Kevin sat across from them, just out of grabbing reach. “So you're... this isn't some Smiling God trick?” he asked cautiously.

(He knew he'd get the same answer whether it was or wasn't.)

“Of course not,” they huffed. “That's what I've been trying to tell you. Now make your stupid fucking deal so I can—I don't know. Die in peace.”

Despite himself, Kevin let out a laugh. “Die? Avery, if you're really immortal, you're _not_ going to die—I haven't. I've tried, trust me. And other people have tried!” He hesitated. “If... you're like me, you're stuck like this.”

“Like this?” they complained. “With a fucking thing in my head and these stupid fucking—” they jerked at the cords in their chest and for a moment seemed to quit thinking. Kevin was prodding at them when they snapped back into the room, dazed.

He ran his hands over the wires coiled down their chest. “If you're actually immortal then these probably aren't even doing anything,” he remarked. “I don't need weird radio wires to function, so maybe they're serving another purpose.”

They scoffed. “Of course they are, dear Kevin. What, did you think this little brat was a sufficient host for any kind of power?”

Kevin tried to pull his hands away, but they grabbed him quickly before he could, and gripped his hands tightly in theirs.”Don't leave, Kevin. I want you here.”

He cringed. “Demands, asshole. My demands. So you're not fucking me over again, I get to live my life. You don't just brainwash me into killing shit—actually. I don't really want to do the killing thing anymore.”

“You _love_ it, Kevin,” they argued, tightening their grasp of his hands. “You love nothing more—we've had such fun together. The blood. The screaming. The heart—oh, your _favorite_ —”

“ _Stop_ ,” he interrupted sharply. “It—it has to stop. All of it.”

(There was some horror at the back of his mind, the itch, the feeling that said they knew something that he didn't want to admit to, the feeling, the adrenaline, the _taste_. Like nothing he'd ever—would ever—could ever, again. Resolutely.)

They sighed, quite dramatically. “Very well, of course, I won't disrupt your life with anything particularly entertaining, but do tell me. How does this benefit me in the least? You suppose I would give you my power without any personal cost to you?”

Kevin grimaced. “I don't even want your power.”

Now they were grinning. “No? Of course you do, why else would you want me back so badly, Kevin? You come in here wanting to make deals and—”

“You're the one who wants me back,” he pointed out.

“Yes, well, surely we both stand to benefit from—”

Kevin jerked his hands away. “Can you stop? I'm not an idiot. I'm not benefiting from anything. It's—so there isn't anymore mess to clean up.” He frowned. “It's not for me, it's for everyone else.”

They leaned closer to him. “Because they've done so much for you. Really proved themselves wonderful friends, Kevin—I can see why you're loyal.”

He said nothing, he tried not to react.

“You don't need them, all you need is me. We can work together—get them to let us back out of here, out of this horrible desert—together.” They laughed. “Just think! You could get rid of everyone who has ever done you wrong, Kevin.”

He clenched his fists, he grit his teeth, and said nothing.

“Their lives in your hands. You could take back everything your miserable brother ruined for you. He would be your _plaything_ , that thing that he serves—nothing compared to us, Kevin. Nothing compared to the Great Unraveling.” By now, they had leaned forward enough for their faces to be only inches away, their breath smelling like blood. (Kevin's smelled like toothpaste that he'd borrowed, which was a nice change.)

“I don't really want the Great Unraveling,” Kevin admitted. “I mean—okay, so I've thought about it and nonexistence sounds okay sometimes but. ...watching it happen was different.” He pushed them back down again, scooting back to give himself some space.

“That wasn't even a shadow of what the _true_ unraveling would look like,” they insisted. “And with you at the helm. Us. Leading it all.”

Kevin shrugged. “I'd rather not. Actually? I thought of something else, uh. Another demand.”

They hesitated. “And... what is that?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet you thought for sure something dramatic was going to happen this chapter, and here I am, dangling this in front of you like a monster.
> 
> there's probably just a few chapters left, friends! we're gonna make it! it's gonna happen!!! i'm going to try and get it pounded out sooner rather than later because life things keep getting in the way, and I'll be going off in the fall to get my MFA lmao. so ideally this'll be done well before then.
> 
> as always, thanks for reading, you all rock!


	65. Sunspots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin makes a deal with the Smiling God while the others wait out in the hallway and chat.

“You don't think this is some nasty plot, do you?” Dana asked, leaning closer to Cecil.

The group had gathered out in the hallway after Kevin chased them out, and they heard bits and pieces of conversation, anytime Kevin raised his voice, mostly. The Smiling God—or Avery—whoever, never really got loud enough to hear.

“I don't know, maybe,” Cecil remarked with a sigh, “We'll figure it out.”

He readjusted the arm he had wrapped around Carlos's waist, and pulled him in closer. Carlos smiled and leaned against him and closed his eyes, thinking about going home. Cecil planted a kiss on the top of his head. They could figure out anything the world threw at them, later.

Dana scooted away again, glancing over at the other three, both Tamika and Roger flanking Megan, talking energetically. Catching her up to speed on what had happened, being caught up to speed on what she'd been up to. (She told them that the water fountains worked for some reason, in case they needed a drink. Roger said that didn't sound like a bad idea, but he didn't bother getting up.)

All in all, the hallway had a certain air of celebration about it that Dana didn't like. They'd gotten back together as a group, and yet.

She watched the door quietly, but no answer was forthcoming until, perhaps, it was too late. Almost as if the author had decided not to reveal the actual conversation inside.

“Ceec, when we go home, can we sleep for a week?” Carlos asked, peering up at his boyfriend. “A whole week. Of course. We can do more than sleep. During that week. In bed.”

Cecil let out an embarrassed laugh. “Oh! Of course, we can do _anything_ you want, dear Carlos. We can stay in bed for _months_ , somebody can deliver our food to us, perhaps. I can deliver my radio show from—”

“I don't want it to be on air!” Carlos replied quickly, flustered. As Cecil giggled at him, he played with the long ends of Cecil's purple hair and didn't look at his face, too embarrassed to even dare it. (He would, of course, have noticed that Cecil had turned quite the striking shade of lavender—but he didn't look, so he didn't notice.)

“Then, I won't broadcast anything. It will be our little secret, Carlos,” Cecil insisted.

Dana snorted, loudly. She couldn't help herself. “Cecil, you couldn't keep a secret if your life depended on it.”

“I've kept plenty of secrets!” he huffed, looking over at her. The effect was somewhat less dramatic, since without his glasses, he couldn't focus on her. “In fact, I'm an expert secret keeper. I had that badge when I was a scout.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You were a scout? What, in the first ever troop?”

“Don't ask a man his age,” Cecil complained, releasing Carlos so he could cross his arms. Carlos draped lazily against him, no longer held in place.

Dana chuckled. “I didn't ask. But Carlos, I'm saying this as a friend, if you want any amount of privacy—don't date radio personnel. You'll be _everywhere_ on the news.”

Carlos snickered. “Nothing newsworthy about me. Unless you want to report on my experiments.” He looked up at Cecil after a moment, hopeful. “Could you report on my experiments?”

He cleared his throat and spoke in his radio tone, “Good evening listeners, I would just like to inform you tonight that Carlos the Scientist has been experimenting lately with his tongue in a way I rather—” He was cut off when Carlos's hand clamped over his mouth, coupled with an embarrassed squeal from the scientist.

“Not those experiments!” he whined. “Science experiments! You can report on my science and tell everyone about—ooh, we can tell everyone about _this_ place, Cecil. This—it's the most scientifically interesting place I've ever seen. It's just _weird_.”

Cecil pushed his hand away to speak. “I could get scientific if you want me to,” he insisted. “I'm a lot more interesting than a bunch of sand.”

Dana snorted. “Cecil, I don't think you're actually competing against a desert.”

He huffed, “I can compete against anything that I want to, Dana.”

“Clearly you can,” she laughed.

Carlos grinned up at him. “You're still the most scientifically interesting _person_ I've ever seen, Cecil. I—I look forward to um. Investigating. It's going to need a number of replications just to make sure of course.” He then fell into a fit of giggles, unable to keep his composure.

“Well we can do it as many times as you want, dear Carlos!” Cecil insisted.

Roger's voice broke into the conversation, “Could you try and keep it in your pants til you get home, guys? Nobody wants to see it.”

Cecil scoffed, and Carlos, giggling, leaned in close and whispered that he _definitely_ wanted to see it. This comment was interrupted with a kiss. Dana shifted further away from the couple, and joined the others. Those two seemed like they needed their space.

“So what's the goal to get out of here?” she asked, settling into place across from the trio. “Hopefully something quicker than wandering until we accidentally slip through the cracks and back out into reality. I've tried that. It took forever.”

Tamika shook her head. “No, no—we got out with bloodstones last time. Much quicker.”

“Most of ours are wrecked but Tamika got hers back on the way in,” Roger remarked. “If Kevin wrecks the other set we've still got that for backup.”

Tamika patted the backpack she'd grabbed back out from where she'd left it the first damn time. “Kind of hoping he won't destroy Cecil's so we don't have to leave these behind.”

Dana cringed. “You're all trading bloodstones now? That hardly seems... safe.”

Roger snorted. “It's not. They're really unhappy about it but Kevin's destroyed every set so far—”

“But we're hoping that this will be the last weird trick we need, everything goes back to normal, we go home, it's all fine,” Tamika concluded.

“With Kevin.” Dana watched them incredulously.

“Yes, with Kevin,” Tamika sighed. “Look it's—it's not a guarantee. If he turns out to be dangerous, we can always just leave him but. He's kind of doing us a good turn by doing this at all, I guess it's not that great if the Smiling God doesn't have a host.”

Megan spoke up, “I think that's what happened to us, Dana. Everything getting all hazy, I mean, that's what Tamika was saying. It made us all blink out and vanish.”

“Right, so if we don't want that to start happening on a mass scale—weird as it sounds, it's probably a good idea for Kevin to have that nasty thing back,” Tamika remarked.

Dana lapsed into silence for a few moments, then shrugged. “I guess that makes sense. I hope it's not a trick though.”

That elicited a laugh from Roger. “We're all on the same damn page. Just wanna go home. See my dad again and, y'know. Everyone.”

The group fell into silence, each unwilling to look at each other for what felt like forever. A couple yards away, Cecil had Carlos pressed against the wall, the two were making out noisily. It was the only sound in the hallway, which actually made the whole thing much more awkward. (Except for the couple themselves, blissfully unable to read the mood.)

“If the Smiling God kills us or something, it's been great knowing you guys,” Roger remarked eventually. “Didn't say that last time, thought... maybe I'd missed my chance.”

Megan laughed. “We all love you too Roger.” She wrapped her arms around him in a big hug; he was easily dwarfed in her grip. Tamika grinned and tried to wrap her arms around both of them, falling a little bit short of success. They stayed like this a moment.

“Well? Are you coming?” Tamika asked, looking over at Dana.

“Oh, me? I'm invited?” she asked with a chuckle. “I thought this was one of your things.”

“Nah, friendship hug,” Tamika insisted. She and Roger both reached out and pulled Dana in, absorbing her into the hug for roughly .05 seconds before something very loud blew apart in the broadcasting booth. The hug turned quickly into protective shielding on the part of Megan.

Cecil spun around to face the door, spreading his arms like he'd somehow better protect Carlos, behind him. He tried to focus, like there was anything to see with the door shut. There wasn't, of course.

“What do you think that was?” Carlos asked, voice barely above a whisper.

“Probably nothing good,” Cecil insisted. “Tamika—you still have your bloodstones, right? We should leave.”

She carefully peeled herself out of the group hug and dug through her bag with a sigh. “You think it's an accident or he's doing something intentional?”

“Could be either, no point staying to find out,” Megan remarked.

Everyone watched silently, awaiting the bloodstones that Tamika had in her bag, or rather maybe thought she had in her bag. She turned it over and dumped it out, and something became quite obvious at that moment.

The whole inside of the bag had been bloodied, somebody had been rifling through it.

And her entire set of bloodstones was gone.

 

* * *

 

 

Kevin opened his third eye again, slowly lowering the hand he'd been shielding it with. He couldn't afford to lose the last bit of eyesight he had left.

“What the fuck. Are you doing. Look now you blew up the uh—” he squinted and tried to bring the wreckage into focus. What remained of the equipment in the booth was still smoking, and he couldn't have even seen it that clearly if he hadn't been so blind. He looked away again, and tried to focus instead on the figure hunched over against the wall. “You blew up the equipment. That was probably some seriously expensive shit.”

They looked up at him again, grinning despite themself, with blood dripping from their nose, sparks flickering off their robotic eye and the cords still draped over their chest. “What a sad—sad—sacrifice—” they cut off into sputtering laughter.

This time, he approached them much more carefully, steering clear of anywhere their hands could reach him. Kevin brushed his fingers along the floor and sought out something he knew he was going to find.

Shards of stone greeted him with a certain familiarity. He brushed Tamika's ruined bloodstones out of the circle. A circle he hadn't seen, that the Smiling God had counted on him not seeing. Playing his blindness against him.

“What the hell did you set up anyway?” he asked, pinching a small piece of rock between his fingertips. “It obviously failed.”

“Oh, did it?” they asked.

“Yes.” Kevin started sweeping away the bits of stone with his hands. “Unless your goal was to destroy expensive equipment. Then I guess you did that, congratulations. Can we focus?”

They sighed. “Of course, very well, fine. Then I'll accept your demands, if it's all that's going to convince you.”

He snorted. “Somehow not convinced.”

“Then don't be convinced. I don't care. Just do it anyway.”

Kevin said nothing after that, thinking it over. He'd been ready to, he'd been reaching over to start laying out his stones when he'd accidentally planted the palm of his hand inside of their bloodstone circle. It hadn't done a thing until he made contact.

With an incredible electrical crackle, the whole booth had blown out. His ears were still ringing. He was sure he'd been hit by shrapnel. Mostly, it had just been loud.

A display, more than anything. He sighed and grabbed the bloody silk pouch off the floor, and began laying Cecil's bloodstones out in earnest. They protested at his touch, he could tell; there was a certain energy about bloodstones when they didn't want you handling them, and Cecil's didn't want him touching them at all.

He ignored the sensation, focused instead on the feeling of the carvings in each stone, to guide him as he determined where to place them. He knew the basic setup of a bloodstone circle by heart, and thought through the ritual as he readied it.

Kevin was going to need blood, and he wasn't sure he had any, though he had Cecil's knife. He sat back after the circle was done, and slid the ceremonial dagger out of its cover. Pricked his finger on it and squeezed to force the blood out, surprised to find that he'd somehow started bleeding again without even a heart to pump it.

(That was something he would tell himself not to think about too much, if he'd been of the right mind to even be thinking. As it was, he was only thinking about the symbols needed in his ritual, and where to draw them.)

Having finally been clean enough to know he wasn't drawing on top of old symbols, Kevin just hoped he'd only have to do it once, as he worked his shirt off and started drawing on himself in thin lines of blood, as though he could conserve it, make it last if he was careful, whatever blood he even had.

The Smiling God, or Avery—whoever—just watched him as he did this, approvingly, but saying nothing. The conversation was over, Kevin worked through setting up the ritual as quickly as he could, and settled into the circle with them.

As he bled onto each of the stones in turn, he was sure they protested his actions more, even, than any others had. Maybe Cecil's just knew their owner much more strongly—they'd had plenty of time to learn. He held out hope against hope that it was going to work, go off without so much as a hitch.

The feeling hit him like white hot fire, as soon as he'd finished the last movement. Kevin cried out despite himself and doubled over, clutching at his head as a familiar burn that he'd known since long, long ago came back like it hadn't ever left.

(He wouldn't realize until later just how much _better_ he'd felt without it but—well.)

As the initial burn ebbed away, he just felt numb, heavy limbed. Kevin sat up shakily and opened his third eye again, and felt the burn as the Smiling God's light escaped the same as it always had. He quickly closed his eye again, letting out a whimper. “F-fuck.”

He was blind for real, this time.

“Avery?” he called out, feeling for where he remembered they'd been sitting just a moment before. His hands brushed against their leg, and he shook it to try and get a response. They felt limp, no resistance at all to the motion. “A-are you okay?” he sputtered.

As he carefully worked his hands up their torso, ran his fingers over the cords draped over them, they weren't even breathing anymore, weren't moving at all. He shook their shoulders and their head lolled to the side.

Kevin dropped them quickly. “Fuck. Fucking—fuck! That stupid thing and—god, I knew it. A corpse. God. Kevin, look at you. Fucking making deals with a possessed corpse—fuck.”

At the continued lack of a response from Avery, he knew the Smiling God had just been fucking with him, so he sighed and went to work groping around for Cecil's stones, mercifully still in one piece—for probably the first time since this whole debacle had started, he'd done a ritual straight through without a single disruption, a single mistake.

For their part of the deal, thus far, the Smiling God seemed obedient—he felt nothing of the usual tug for control that they might have tried, heard nothing of their words trying to persuade him. Aside from the conspicuous burning sensation, he felt otherwise alone.

Counting each stone as he slipped it back into the bloody silk pouch, he paused a moment by Avery, and dared to open his eye again, well aware of the blinding light he now gave off anew. But there was nothing he could harm, nothing he could do if they were already dead—and he could see, even if only just barely.

“I'm... ...I'm sorry for fucking up, kid,” he muttered. “That's all. You were just an intern. You shouldn't have gotten wrapped up in this fucking mess. So. Sorry.”

He waited, almost as though they'd rise at any moment and laugh, pleased to have gotten an apology out of him at last. Nothing happened.

He closed his eye again and stumbled blindly to his feet, groping his way toward the exit. It was slow-going. He never thought he'd miss the awful eyes that Strex had given him—but, there you have it. He missed them terribly.

Nevertheless, he managed to make his way out to the hallway, explaining as he emerged. “Okay, it's done, we can go back. I—I made a deal, I'm still me, I'm fine I just. Can't open my eye so can. Somebody kind of uh...”

Something made him trail off mid-sentence. The hallway was silent, not a word, not a sound, not even breathing from the five people who were supposed to be out there.

"H-hello...? Guys? ...Cecil?"

That was the moment he realized that they'd left.

Every last one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well that wasn't so bad, was it?
> 
> ...right?
> 
> as always, thanks for kudos and comments, all of you are awesome!! this will all be over before u know it. :0 and then where will we be?


	66. A Second Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin has a conversation, and the rest of the group makes a choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no content warnings

Kevin stumbled down the hall, groping at the wall as he went. “Guys? Guys, this—this isn't funny. I mean, okay, fine, it's hilarious, is that what you want to hear? But the joke's over.”

He hadn't made it far from his starting point; as it turned out, navigation while mostly blind was still leagues better than navigation while totally blind. His sense of direction was ruined, he'd been feeling his way slowly down the hallway. He didn't know the way out, didn't know whether they'd even left.

Well, deep down, he pretty much knew. “Ceec come on. Hahaha, funny, taunting me like this, you know, you really got me!” he called out. “I fell for it, you got me good! Now we can all just go together and leave and it'll be fine—look, look. I've got your bloodstones!”

Kevin held out the pouch, waving it at what was just empty air, for all he knew.

“Would be a real shame if you grabbed these from me when I can't see where you are, Cecil. I hope you don't try and take them!”

He waved the bag for a few more moments, then sighed. Of course not. He stuffed it back in his pocket again and reached out blindly for the wall. And resumed making his way toward wherever he thought he was going, anyway.

A voice itched at the back of his mind though, reminded him: he didn't have to look for them at all. “You have the way out, Kevin.”

At that, he froze, his hand lowered back to the bag of bloodstones again. Cecil's bloodstones, still protesting his touch, but well, there wasn't much they could do about it. He'd proven to have rather a knack for stealing other people's bloodstones.

“They left you, Kevin.” It felt like his own voice, but he knew it wasn't. “You don't owe them anything, just leave.”

Kevin forced out a nervous little laugh. “Well of course it's just a misunderstanding, they probably just went to find the restroom. They're waiting outside. They just didn't know I'd be blind, they'll hear me soon. Then we'll all go together.”

“They abandoned you.”

He shook his head. “They just stepped out to check and make sure nobody else was stuck here, they don't want to leave anyone behind.”

The voice came in again, “They betrayed you,”

“Don't be silly, they're just--just stretching their legs!” Kevin insisted, voice rising in volume. “They'll be back in a minute, they wouldn't just leave me here.”

A long silence passed between the two of them, and Kevin resumed walking, shaky hands brushing along the wall. He kept his third eye clamped shut, and the other two were missing so there wasn't shit to be seen. He tried to steel his resolve; he'd find his way to the others yet. 

“Wouldn't they, though?” the voice asked him. “Wasn't it part of their plan to be rid of you?”

“It's different now!” Kevin snapped.

“Is it really, Kevin? What part of it is different?” the Smiling God asked. “How they took you here to sacrifice yourself for their greater good, or how they left you behind at the slightest doubt? You have a way out; forget them.”

He faltered, his hand dropping back down to the bag of bloodstones in his pocket. A way out. He sighed. “It doesn't matter, I can't go back alone.”

There was a pause. “And why not? You have the bloodstones, you know the rituals. Why, we could go back finally and--”

“They'll kill me,” Kevin interrupted. “Whoever finds me--they'll see me and I won't see them, they'll kill me. Torture me, at least.”

The Smiling God reminded him of his immortality, but Kevin was hearing none of it. He slowly slid down against the wall into a sitting position, knees pulled to his chest. 

“I can't go back alone,” he repeated hollowly. “Even if it doesn't kill me.”

“Then what do you propose we do instead?”

Kevin took out the bag of Cecil's bloodstones again, turning over the bloody pouch without opening it, considering the stones through the fabric. “I guess I stay here, like they wanted anyway. Since they went to all that trouble.”

He whipped the bag of stones down the hall and it clattered onto the floor some distance away, he couldn't tell where. Kevin buried his face between his knees.

“Get back up,” the voice demanded.

Kevin shrugged his shoulders and refused to rise.

“If you choose not to go, then I will make you go.”

He laughed bitterly. “Have fun, good luck navigating without sight you irritating fuck.”

Another silence passed between them. “You gain nothing out of this, Kevin. Together we could go, do something better, there are so many things we could--”

“No, no. Here's an idea--fuck you. I did what I came here for and they fucked me over and that's that. You're not manipulating me too,” Kevin hissed through gritted teeth. “I’m done playing everyone’s pawn. I’ll just. Stay here. I’m done.”

He waited, trying to anticipate whatever reaction he’d get--was the Smiling God going to try controlling him, try telling him how he deserved to taste blood again, telling him to go take vengeance on the world? All tactics he’d faced before. He wasn’t sure how he’d fare, but he didn’t figure anything would surprise him.

(Maybe being abandoned shouldn’t have surprised him, either. Maybe none of this should have.)

But then, what else had he possibly expected to happen?

* * *

 

“If we just get out of the building in one piece—it'll be a lot of wandering, probably, but we can get out eventually,” Dana explained to the rest of the group as they made their way to the exit in a pack. “We can try and find the masked army out there—they sort of helped me find my way the first time.”

As the second tallest in the group, Cecil helped Megan tie Carlos's labcoat back over her head again to shield from the sun. The others weren't going to be as covered, but then, everyone else at least had a full head of hair to protect their scalp, so that was a start.

“I don't believe the masked army is terribly fond of me,” Cecil remarked.

Dana sighed. “Well, hopefully they'll still help. All the rest of us have done nothing wrong, we don't deserve to be stuck here forever.”

Carlos trailed toward the back of the group as they walked, waiting for Cecil to fall back into step with him again, and thinking. The whole thing seemed a little off to him, but then, nothing had been making scientific sense, so maybe trying to make judgments like he would have in the past just... wasn't good enough anymore.

After Tamika had realized that her bloodstones were missing, the decision was made quickly. They'd just heard an explosion from the room, something was wrong—it had to be.

Cecil had piped up first, “We just need to get out of here—find another way. Bloodstones weren't the only way, you got out of here without that ritual, didn't you Dana?”

She grimaced. “I... well, yes. But it took a while, Cecil.”

“Did it?” He looked over.

“Yes? Don't you remember? I was gone for, well, it felt like forever. It's very hot out there, too, and it's not pleasant. Nobody else has a way out?”

“Not unless somebody else has their bloodstones,” Tamika sighed. “You don't, do you Dana? Kevin's got Cecil's. Mine are... well they were supposed to be in here.”

Roger piped up, “Mine are in a million bits. Kevin's too. Megan?”

She shook her head. “I don't know.”

A silence fell over the group, and a few pairs of eyes looked back toward the door in time to see the light that began to shine out through the crack beneath it. The light of the Smiling God, of course, only—they could still look away. Then the light died down.

“We need to get out of here, bloodstones or no,” Cecil insisted, getting up and pulling Carlos to his feet as well. “Dana, you can lead the way—we'll find out way out the way you did.”

Dana sighed. “It's not that easy, Cecil.” But she'd already stood up, and now so was everyone else. And with that, they started down the hall toward the exit, and she started explaining where they were going, what their plan of approach was.

It sounded bleak, and bleaker still as she continued on. They could look forward to maybe months of wandering, and she insisted she hadn’t gotten hungry, hadn’t gotten thirsty while she’d been wandering, but that much seemed unsure for a second go around. After the way they’d so poorly weathered the burning sun before.

Maybe it would work. Maybe it would kill them.

As they neared the exit, Carlos stopped walking. For a moment, Cecil tripped forward, trying to drag him with; then he stopped as well. “Carlos…? Come on, we’re almost out. If you’re tired of walking, you know, I would be  _ happy _ to carry--”

“Something is wrong with this,” Carlos insisted, pulling away as his boyfriend tried to pick him up. “Am I the only one that thinks there’s something wrong?”

By the way they looked at him, he guessed his suspicions were pretty much confirmed. Tamika spoke up first.

“Of course something’s wrong, whatever the hell Kevin was doing backfired--or he turned on us--or something, and it went wrong. That’s why we’re getting out of here,” she explained, arms folded across her chest impatiently. “Dana knows well enough how we can try to navigate our way out without bloodstones, we’ll find the Masked Army again or something and then get back out. And leave this whole mess behind here, I think it sounds like a pretty solid concept.”

Carlos frowned. “Tamika, your bloodstones were missing. Right?”

“That’s sort of why we aren’t already out, yes,” she agreed. “Something took them.”

“Something,” he repeated. “But not Kevin--we’re agreed it wasn’t Kevin that took them, right? It couldn’t have been. He was with you guys.”

Tamika nodded slowly. “That’s true, but irrelevant, I think. Regardless of the location of the bloodstones--”

“Shit, what if that noise we heard wasn’t Kevin doing it?” Roger interrupted.

Tamika pursed her lips. “Maybe it wasn’t. I’ll grant you that. What suggestion do you think that leads to, then? We’re protecting ourselves first and foremost, Carlos--remember that. Kevin made an attempt on all of our lives and we don’t owe him anything that puts us in danger.”

The others nodded in quiet agreement, save for Cecil, who was staring Carlos down with an unreadable expression. He cleared his throat and spoke, “Carlos. We should get going.”

“What if we don’t have to?” he argued. “What if--maybe it’s okay. Or maybe it’s not, but maybe it’s not that bad. If that thing is--is using Avery still. Then it was weak or something, right?”

Dana interjected, “If we don’t have to leave and wander the desert, I um. I honestly think that might be kind of a good idea, I’m just throwing it out there. Wandering the desert all those months was awful.”

“Right. And maybe we don’t have to,” Carlos concluded. “So we should at least check.”

Tamika frowned. “That’s if the Smiling God is with Avery still. And what if it’s with Kevin? Wouldn’t that make it a lot more dangerous?”

A moment of silence passed.

“I...thought that was what you guys were going for anyway, wasn’t it?” Megan asked. “Getting the Smiling God back with Kevin again?”

Carlos looked from face to face. “Was that the plan all along? To just… leave him here?”

Tamika shook her head quickly. “We had every intention of taking him back with us.”

“Well, it really wasn’t discussed,” Cecil remarked flatly. “If he’s dangerous then it’s best if we just get going--which we should be doing right now, in fact, before the Smiling God comes and makes us regret standing around and discussing this. You know, apart from being utterly fake, time is also of the essence.”

“Can I hear that confirmed from someone other than Cecil?” Carlos asked, then paused. “Um, no offence, Ceec. I just… you do hate him a lot.”

“He’s pretty much on point with that,” Roger muttered after a moment. “We kind of weren’t… discussing it, strictly. But I think if Kevin ever turned out dangerous, the idea was we’d just leave him. And with that noise…”

“But we did agree that whatever happened might not have been Kevin,” Tamika pointed out. “I… think I get what you’re going for, Carlos--but it is definitely still a risk to go back and check.”

Carlos sighed. “It is, I’ll give you that. It’s a risk.”

Cecil planted a hand on his shoulder. “I think. That we should just go back to leaving--I’m not losing you again, Carlos. I thought I’d lost you before! I’m not going through that again.”

The group fell silent for a moment, each mulling over their own thoughts. Carlos reached up and laid his hand over Cecil’s, moving it so he could nuzzle his cheek against his boyfriend’s hand for a moment in the quiet. Then he pulled away.

“I don’t want to go walk the desert and die never knowing if maybe we could have not died,” he concluded.

Dana piped up, “Technically we may not die in the desert, I walked it for a long time and didn’t die. If we do this, we might die never knowing if maybe we could have gotten out the desert way.”

Carlos shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll go check. If you hear me scream, or if I don’t come back or something, then um, maybe just get out of here and go figure it out?”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Cecil huffed. “I’m not losing you again.”

“Then feel free to come with, Cecil.”

They stared each other down for a moment, and Cecil relented, looking away. “Fine. Let’s go… see what happened, I guess. I don’t know what you’re looking to accomplish that way.”

Carlos snorted. “I don’t really know either, but maybe I’ll figure it out when we get there. Are we all in?” He looked over to the others.

Megan, Roger, and Tamika separated from each other, where they’d been talking. Megan answered, “We’re gonna stay right here, if that’s okay.”

“That’s fine, Dana?” Carlos looked over.

Dana shifted closer to the other three and echoed Megan’s sentiment, and in that manner, their destinations were decided. They covered the basics--if Cecil and Carlos weren’t back in something like a half hour, then the others should get going, and if they got out later they’d just find them later or something. There’d be plenty of desert wandering so it would probably work.

For their part, Cecil and Carlos aimed either to get Kevin back on their side, or at least get Cecil’s bloodstones back from him so they could leave.

That seemed simple enough, but still, it wasn’t a fun mystery to walk back toward.

Would they be facing Kevin back there, or the Smiling God?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooo.... that was a long break between chapters, wasn't it? i had some unexpected but good things come up, and just finished with my first gallery show, so that kept me busy for a while. next update comes???? whenever it does. i'll be trying to finish this story sooner rather than later, as i may be leaving for school in the fall and hope to have wrapped this up prior to then, so i don't have to worry about it.
> 
> as always, thanks for reading, yall are great. <3


	67. The Easiest Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos and Cecil find Kevin, and plans are made to leave the desert otherworld once and for all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy valentines day, for u all i give the gift of an update

Carlos saw the silk pouch on the floor before he noticed Kevin, further down the hall. He frowned as he crouched to look at the bloody bag.

“Ceec, these are your stones, right?” he asked, picking it up by the least bloody part--though the blood on the bag was almost all dry, only a small bit near the opening wasn’t. He dropped the bag of bloodstones into Cecil’s open hands with a clatter as the stones clicked against each other.

“They… are, yes.” Cecil gingerly loosened the drawstring top and pulled a couple of the stones out, looking them over, the incorrect blood still on them; and he could tell they weren’t happy about it in the least, but unbroken. Undamaged. Cecil breathed a sigh of relief and carefully counted them out as Carlos looked off down the hall and noticed the figure seated by the wall.

In all, Kevin had only made it some ten yards down from the broadcasting booth before he’d stopped, and from that spot, he still hadn’t moved. His knees were pulled to his chest, arms crossed over them, face hidden between them.

Blood was dripping down from his third eye, smeared over his crossed arms and pooling on the floor between his feet.

He gave no indication of noticing either of them as Carlos made his way closer, cautious, not yet ready to say anything. Not yet sure who he was facing, if Kevin would greet him, or the Smiling God themself, perhaps ready to end him in a moment. 

But he steeled his resolve, cleared his throat. “Kevin?”

The reaction was immediate; Kevin startled at his voice, looked up, and opened his third eye without thinking, bathing the hallway in blinding light for the few moments before he realized. Closed his eye. Clamped both hands over it, as though it would open again against his will.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he sputtered, panicked. “I forgot, I don’t know--I can’t see what’s. I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

Cecil ran over the moment he’d seen the light go away, and had his hands on Carlos’ shoulders before he could otherwise react. “Carlos, Carlos, say you’re still with me.”

Still stumbling over his words, Kevin kept babbling. “Cecil? Oh, god, I’m sorry, Ceec, I wasn’t thinking, I didn’t think you’d come back I thought--I don’t know I thought--what if you abandoned me? I don’t--I didn’t--”

He just kept going.

Carlos, for his part, was saying nothing, just blinking a lot, like trying to blink the light from his eyes. He looked up at Cecil with a smile, and Cecil’s heart sunk to his feet.

“Carlos…?” he tried again, hesitant.

But Carlos laughed a little. “I’m okay. Wow.”

Cecil took his face in his hands, studying him closely, especially his eyes, like he’d find the secret hidden therein, which might admit whether Carlos was telling the truth or not. “Are you… sure you’re alright, Carlos?”

He nodded and gave Cecil a peck on the lips before pulling away. He turned back to Kevin. “So does that mean you fixed it?”

Kevin didn’t respond to him at all, buried in his own panic and still muttering apologies and shaking. He refused to lower his hands from his third eye, as though that was going to keep him from making anymore horrible mistakes.

“Hey. Kevin?” Carlos reached out and carefully took hold of his hands, pulling them down from his face. “Kevin, I’m okay. Are you okay?” 

Though he flinched away when Carlos first grabbed at his hands, he allowed them to be lowered, and just kept his third eye shut--he’d had it sewn shut before, he’d have to make a note to do that again. Stop it from happening maybe. Tie a headband over it. Something. He wished he could see Carlos’ expression, know how to respond.

He nodded slowly and replied, voice wispy and out of breath, “Fine, peachy.”

“Did you fix the Smiling God thing then?” Carlos asked. “That--that should have mind controlled me, right? That light? Because it didn’t.”

“It… didn't?” he asked haltingly.

Carlos shook his head, then realized and answered verbally; “I'm right here aren't I? It didn't mind control me at all, at least, I don't think it did? Do I sound mind controlled…?”

“You--you sound okay,” Kevin replied. “...can I….?”

Without waiting for an answer, he slowly opened his third eye again, only to be greeted by the kind of vague visual of Carlos squinting into the light and then Cecil grabbing him from behind and pulling him away. Kevin winced as he closed his third eye again, the light burning his eyelid. He covered his eye with his hands again. 

“What's wrong with you??” Cecil snapped. “Don't just do that on purpose!”

Kevin stammered, “S-sorry I wanted to test something, that's all, just…” He trailed off into uncomfortable silence.

Carlos rubbed at his face and blinked a few times to clear the spots from his vision, or at least try, “Okay I don't think you ruined my mind but that was really bright and you might ruin my eyes like that, Kevin. So, maybe don't do that again.”

“Sorry!” he blurted again. Then after a moment's hesitation: “Can we um. Are we gonna--let's go? I want out of here.”

When Carlos tried to answer, Cecil interrupted him.

“This is Kevin we're speaking to, right? Not the Smiling God.”

Kevin nodded, facing toward where he thought Cecil's voice was coming from. “I'm fine, Ceec. I mean not really but I'm me.”

Cecil frowned, pursed his lips. “Of course the Smiling God could just say that--I'm not convinced, you understand why.”

“I think he's being sincere, Cecil,” Carlos remarked. “Why would the Smiling God be afraid of hurting us?”

He scoffed. “Acting. It can act however it wants.”

A moment of silence passed between the three of them, Cecil and Carlos standing a couple yards back from where Kevin sat on the floor. Cecil touched the bloodstone pouch that he'd shoved into his pocket. They had all they needed to leave, right now.

With or without Kevin.

“How can I prove it?” Kevin asked at length. “It's really me.”

Cecil huffed, “Say something that the Smiling God wouldn't know of course.”

“What… would the Smiling God not know that you um, w-want me to even say, Ceec?” Kevin replied haltingly.

“Well if you weren't the Smiling God, wouldn't you know that?”

“Hey, that's not how that works!” Kevin complained. “Carlos, that's--that's not how that works right Carlos?” He inclined his head imploringly in what he thought was Carlos's direction. (It wasn't.)

Cecil rolled his eyes. “Oh don't go asking him for help, he won't help you, Kevin, or should I say Smiling God.”

“Can--can you stop saying that it's getting weird. Um, you slept with your stuffed kraken until you were fifteen?”

(Carlos hid a smirk, a stuffed kraken?)

Cecil wasn't amused. “Everyone knows that. You could have just asked Earl or something.”

Kevin frowned. “I, uh. I don't know what you're looking for here. If anything. If you're not just um, looking to say I'm a liar.”

A length of silence passed between the three of them before Carlos spoke up,”Didn't you guys ever have any secrets as little kids? I mean I used to play scientist with the neighbor kids and we had secret um, passcodes for the laboratory which was really actually just the crawlspace but with some old kitchenware and we--”

Cecil interrupted him, since it seemed like he had no real plan of stopping otherwise. “That would imply we had ever gotten along.”

Kevin winced. “No yeah I mean there was the um. Whe-when we were in scouts I mean, and mother wasn't on the approved list to know about the ritual um, you...I… you remember, right?” He wished he could gauge his brother's expression. “The coast is clear was uh, three lines of salt by the crack of the door and it was two if you or me were doing something so the other got to distract--”

“Well first of all you never held up your end of the bargain,” Cecil began. “She came in and saw, remember? Hey Cecil do you have any dirty laundry--ohgodsalmightywhatisthatabomination? And we had to report to the scout master and--”

“And she went for reeducation, yeah,” Kevin sighed. “Shit, I think I was at Alisha’s house when that happened.”

Cecil scoffed. “Well you were supposed to come home after school and help before the scout meeting because it wasn't done.”

“That was your fault though! We had another blood moon like a month before when I did mine and--”

“Yes because you took too long getting your stones in order and the moon was out of position by the time it was my turn.”

Kevin snorted. “Ceec, the moon was out of position before I was done with  _ my _ turn. You remember the mess.”

“I mean, yes, but the scout master still gave you your badge and I didn't get mine for another two months.”

“You did get the reeducation badge though and I didn't,” Kevin offered.

“Yes but… I don't know, she wasn't the same with me after. She didn't like me as much.” Cecil folded his arms and looked away. 

Kevin shrugged. “She  _ never _ liked me so I mean. I get it.”

They lapsed into silence again, Carlos looking from one to the other and waiting for the next move. It didn't happen. He spoke up instead, “So… we can go now, right? I mean he's not the Smiling God right.”

“I… I guess he's not,” Cecil grumbled, arms still crossed. “Fine. Let's just go before something else bad happens.”

He began then to walk away, and after a moment Carlos hurried over to pull Kevin to his feet so he wouldn't get left behind. “Come on. Let's um, we're going home.”

The two of them hobbled along together after Cecil, with Kevin stumbling on occasion as they made their way down the hallway. He didn't say much. Carlos didn't ask. Truthfully, Kevin was just waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the two of them to say they wouldn’t take him after all, leave him stranded, blind, in a hallway, in an abandoned school in an empty desert so far from other people that he’d never--...but he couldn’t think about that.

He resolved not to think about that, and limped along next to Carlos, and ignored the voice itching at the back of his mind.  _ They’ll turn on you in a heartbeat, Kevin _ .

Ha, well. Good thing he didn’t have one.

* * *

 

“I don’t know if we can particularly return to, ah, to Night Vale after how we left,” Cecil muttered to the gathered group. They’d met back up with the others, and after some initial double-triple-quadruple-checking that Kevin was just Kevin, and not the Smiling God, they were supposed to be off on their way.

Cecil had tried to clean the blood off of his bloodstones as well as he could, but there wasn’t much of a point to it. They’d need to go through a whole elaborate ritual, he could perform that later but it would take hours and right now everyone just wanted to go home, and he could hardly explain to them that he’d need to clean his stones right this moment. So. They’d tolerated other use, they’d been fine for Kevin’s abuse of them.

They’d just have to tolerate being used by Cecil again, with little ritual about it.

The nook they’d settled into was once some kind of lounge, when students had occupied the building. A flat screen hung uselessly on the wall, with no TV channels to flip through anymore. Megan and Tamika were draped across one couch, Dana sunk into an armchair. Roger paced, watching Cecil set his bloodstones up on the tacky patterned carpet.

“Are you able to put us back in the old Night Vale?” Dana asked. “I would think that may be simpler, if so.”

Cecil grimaced. “I may. I don’t know if that would really be the best solution, given the fact that I left. You know how Night Vales get.”

“I don’t think any of us do, actually,” she replied.

Kevin snorted. “Pissed that you left. That’s how they get.” He and Carlos had taken up a seat on the floor, near Cecil but not close enough to interfere with his bloodstone circle. Kevin was leaning against Carlos to hold himself up. “I don’t think they’re a big fan of you arriving in the first place either.”

“Well certainly not this last one, no,” Cecil admitted, giving his brother a look that went unnoticed by the blind man. “That’s why it may not be easy to return there. Or, well, safe.”

“Is there such a thing as safe with us, Ceec?” Kevin laughed.

“Don’t lump me in with you.”

“Oh excuuuuse me.”

Tamika interrupted, “Boys, quarrel later. Where are we going to go?”

Cecil scowled and said nothing, continuing to pull out his bloodstones, one by one. Carefully wiping them as clean as possible before he laid them each in place.

(Megan whispered to Tamika: “Was it really that bad there?”

“They mobilized against us riot-style,” Tamika whispered back. “It wasn’t the worst I’ve ever seen, Kevin scared the shit out of their leader.”)

“I can hear you whispering, you know,” Cecil grumbled.

Tamika scoffed. “Good. I think you’re blowing this all way out of proportion. We might not be able to stay there, but I’m sure we can go back and just leave. It’s not like their riot was incredibly effective and I doubt they could form another one so well.”

Carlos spoke up after a moment, “I would um, actually prefer to return home as well, even if we leave I think I would like to gather a few of my belongings, I mean, I have my apartment there and all my stuff is there and I kind of want to take it with me if we’re leaving and going somewhere else.”

“It’s not like we couldn’t probably kill the mob anyway,” Kevin remarked offhandedly.

“Let’s… not kill them unless provoked, Kevin,” Tamika muttered.

“It was just a friendly suggestion.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve heard friendlier,” Roger replied.

“Well, probably, but do you have any other suggestions of your own? If they see us we’ll probably have to fight back, I mean, if we want to leave alive of course,” Kevin huffed. “It’s not like we can just afford to be pacifists about it if they want to get rid of us. We’ll have to paint the town with their blood, that’s all. Get a bit of it all over everywhere, maybe, smear some with our toes and--”

“Do  _ what _ ?” Carlos interrupted, looking at Kevin, at the grin spreading across his face seemingly with no awareness at how awful his suggestion actually was. It took a moment. Kevin realized he’d been addressed, and reorganized his thoughts enough to respond.

“Oh it will be  _ marvellous _ , Carlos, just--imagine, just think about it. I’ve been  _ missing _ that, get my hands on some hearts and--”

Carlos pulled away from him with a quick jerk and Kevin hit the floor, too surprised to steady himself. “No, that’s--that’s not  _ marvellous _ , Kevin, that’s not any good at all!” he insisted, “What--what’s wrong with you??”

Kevin pushed himself up again and looked in Carlos’s direction before replying, “You can never knock something before you’ve tried it, Carlos. Do at least give it a try.”

Tamika watched him closely for a minute, trying to see what had changed in the last few moments. She wasn’t sure if he was about to get dangerous or what, but she wanted to be ready just in case. “Kev, I think your Smiling God is showing,” she grumbled.

“He’s always been like that,” Cecil remarked. “Used to do it with rodents.”

An uncomfortable beat of silence passed in the group, with most members looking at Kevin, and Kevin facing blindly in the direction he was pretty sure Carlos was still sitting.

“Okay that’s pretty fucked up,” Roger interjected into the silence. A few heads nodded; Cecil was still busy arranging his bloodstones and Carlos was trying to read Kevin’s face as he processed what everyone was saying about him.

He looked a little disappointed, and then sighed and muttered, “Sorry, just. Slipped out.”

“We’ll get you a squirrel or something later, pal,” Megan remarked wryly and Tamika swatted her. She stuck her tongue out.

“Okay but that’s still not good? Let’s not do that,” Carlos suggested. “To squirrels or people either.”

Kevin murmured a quiet agreement, disappointed but not willing to argue it. Maybe that  _ was _ kind of wrong of him to want. “So are we going back to Night Vale or…”

“Well, that’s the easiest doorway to leave through,” Cecil replied, “And Carlos  _ does _ want to go back and get some of his things so I think that we need to go back to Night Vale. We have nothing to fear from the mob anyway. It’s nothing that we couldn’t handle.”

Tamika snorted. “I hope you’re right because if it doesn’t work, we’ll be fresh out of bloodstones to do anything else with.”

Cecil started to correct her and then paused, looking down at his bloodstones again. He’d promised them just minutes ago that he would be taking them home and cleansing them properly, but… no, he’d had to leave them behind in the first place and so this time--well, this time he’d presumably be leaving them for good.

That just didn’t sit well with him. But it couldn’t really be helped. At this point, the best thing to do was to hope that perhaps, if Night Vale had rekindled their facilities, and he could be reassigned a new set…

“I guess we should get going then? Um, sooner is better than later?” Carlos suggested.

“Of course,” Cecil sighed. Then brightened, “Alright, so I’ll open a new doorway and everyone goes through, then I follow. We should all arrive at roughly the same time if we go through quickly. And don’t leave until we’re all together again, if you do arrive earlier.”

Carlos had started helping Kevin to his feet, just to be ready. Kevin leaned against him, he leaned away a little, but could only lean away just a little. Well. If he was going to keep spending time with this group, he’d just have to get used to whatever Kevin liked doing to squirrels.

“Is there a chance this splits us up?” Kevin asked. 

“It didn’t the last time, so probably won’t now,” Dana offered.

Cecil laid the last bloodstone out. “Any other questions?”

“Is it okay if I don’t keep my hands and feet inside the ride at all times?” Carlos quipped, and tried not to snicker at his own awful joke, especially once he noticed that the others didn’t seem to understand it at all. “It’s, um. It was… ...nevermind.”

And with that, the cluster once again lapsed into silence--sort of an awkward silence--as Cecil began the ritual. By now, Carlos was as used to bloodstone rituals as anyone else--it was pretty funny to remember how surprised he’d been when this all had started… what, it hadn’t even been that long ago.

A week? A month? Somewhere in-between?

Time was weird, and fake.

The doorway that opened in front of Cecil was big enough that Carlos and Kevin could go through at once, but they waited until the others had passed first, and it was just Cecil remaining in his bloodstone circle. Kevin stumbled forward with guidance and then hesitated, ground his feet against the floor for a second to slow Carlos.

“Hey. Ceec?” he said.

He received no answer, nor had he expected one anyway--in fact, he’d been kind of counting on his brother being too focused to answer him. So he continued, “Thanks for. Not throwing me into the desert to rot. I know you wanted to, but thanks for not doing it anyway.”

Cecil shot him a dirty look but said nothing, and then Carlos and Kevin vanished from sight. Moments later, Cecil rose to his feet quickly and dove through the opening, before it closed behind him like a camera shutter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so! sorry that I didn't update for ages and ages. the story goes like this: I started a grad program, it ended up being really poorly run and toxic, I had to leave, and I've been scrambling to reorient my life ever since. so I've been kind of crazy busy. as the usual goes--I do intend to finish this story, so you have no reason to worry that it will sit unfinished forever, it's just a matter of getting things done as I can.
> 
> right now, I've got some more open time, so hopefully that means I should be able to wrap this all up. since it's nearing completion anyway, and whoosh, it's definitely the longest written work I've done to date.
> 
> anyway, as always, I love all the comments I receive and you guys are all really great. thanks for sticking with me even if my update schedule is inconsistent, and I hope you continue to enjoy!


	68. Aversion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anita Mitchell makes a broadcast. The gang arrives outside the desert otherworld.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is dedicated to the fact that this fic now has a fanfic of its own ( https://archiveofourown.org/works/13778436 )

            Anita Mitchell staggered into the radio station late that night, kicking bloody shoes off by the door with the hope she wouldn’t drag as much across the station floor that way—it wasn’t ultimately that helpful, though. She’d gotten plenty all over her.

            Raining cats and dogs, it seemed, was much more fun in concept than actual fact, and add in some assorted other animals and the people of Night Vale had spent the better half of the day cleaning. Anita would know. She’d been there helping, organizing them—once the mob had died down, and of course, once the rain had stopped.

            After the final capybara had struck asphalt and no other critters were forthcoming, Anita was the one who started throwing around orders to the befuddled masses. And, as confused and desperate for direction as they were, they generally listened quite well and formed factions and dealt with the carcasses as well as they could.

            (Some taxidermist, she knew, would have a field day with all of the priceless pelts just being thrown away; she was _sure_ that some of those species didn’t exist anymore, or perhaps never had in the first place.)

            Among those who still had nothing left to do, she came up with another, perhaps more pressing task that needed tending to. And they performed above and beyond their duties.

            Long into the night, in fact.

The station was eerily silent and incredibly dark as she made her way carefully over to the light switch, and when she turned it on, she stood face to face with an absolutely empty building. No interns babbling forbidden codes, no Erikas staring over her shoulder. The door to station management’s room sat ajar, and she could tell that something had broken the seal but… it didn’t seem like that thing had escaped.

            More like it had left. Packed up and gone.

            Momentarily, she wondered if she was still going to be able to broadcast without station management there—or did that make her the new station management now? Was that how that worked? If she was the last person standing at the new Night Vale Community Radio, she inherited it by right?

            (There had to be a legal document somewhere, she presumed, but she wasn’t sure.)

            Regardless, nobody was here at present, and it was late, and she had no idea if the broadcasting booth was going to work but she stepped through that door and readied herself anyway because it felt like something she needed to do.

            Turning the light on in the booth, her equipment was waiting there, seemingly untouched and perfect, so she cleared her throat, turned it on, and stopped being Anita for a while.

            [Through a hole in the curtain, we could all tell time. Tick. Tock. Tick. It’s dark out there, my friends—are we dark on the inside too? Only time can tell.

            Good evening, Night Vale. I know that this broadcast is uncharacteristically late, perhaps a few of you have been woken by your radios turning on of their own accord. Yes, I’ve been receiving those letters and no, I still don’t know how to make that stop happening. Consider it a piece of ongoing research. I’ll look into it. Promise.

            Regardless, I am reaching out to you at this late hour of… oh, my watch seems to have got some viscera in it, but anyway it’s late. I’m reaching out to speak because I know that in our darkest hour, it can be tantamount to feel united as a front, and I’m pretty sure that night time is our darkest hour. Unless you’ve found a darker one, in which case, that kind of sounds like a _you_ problem since the rest of us only have night.

You all did excellent work out there today, even in light of the tragedy. I know that we have lost some of our own due to livestock-related blunt force trauma. Seeing your loved ones crushed below falling cattle is never easy, but with time, I believe the wounds will heal. There are ways to grow and move past everything that has happened. Yes, I’m talking about alcohol.

But for those of you who don’t want to forget—who know you need to remember—I am glad that you were with me, no, are still with me. Even through these trying times.

            We were able to work as a team to oust the infiltrator who brought this hell upon us so… go team? And by tomorrow morning, the dog park will be walled off permanently—unreachable by anyone, mere mortal or otherwise. I can say with certainty, we will be free of Cecil Palmer and his lot, now. Once and for all.  
            And what can I say other than: I’m proud of you. There is absolutely nothing fun about bricking up a portal to the void in the middle of the night, and for those of you still hard at work: thank you, again. Thank you for everything. And for those who have retired for the night: may you find rest and wake feeling refreshed in the morning.]

            Somewhere behind Mx. Mitchell, the floor creaked, and they spun quickly to face the source of the noise, only to see nothing. They quickly turned back to the microphone and continued, voice and resolve steeled.

            [From here, we need to discuss matters of our moving forward and reclaiming Night Vale from the forces which would take it from us. We need to throw off the chains of—excuse me, is there somebody in here? Hello? Is—give me a moment.

            Here’s the [weather](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwXh8h5jivg).] 

            They switched the weather on quickly and set their microphone down and didn’t turn around before they spoke. “Caitlin? Back so soon?” They hoped that was the most recent intern’s name, and not some other long dead one.

            It didn’t matter either way, because when Anita turned, nothing was facing them—the door to the booth was open now, but there wasn’t a figure around who could have done it. For just a moment, she looked back at her equipment, and then decided, well. She had a few minutes before the weather went away.

            She’d confront the issue.

            Without leaving her booth, Anita cautiously crept over to the doorway and peered out into the empty building, still except for the occasional flicker of worn out overhead lights. She hesitated, then called out:

            “You know in a scary movie, the person who rushes out to investigate always dies!”

            Nobody answered.

            “I’m sorry but this trap is exceedingly obvious and you’re going to have to try better!”

            The continued silence reassured her that either whatever was after her had no intent of pressing the issue, or perhaps she had mostly just been imagining it anyway. After a long day of dealing with death and blood and bricking up otherworldly portals, her nerves were a little shot.

            Anyone’s would be.

            So she sighed and took a few steps back, closing the door before she turned to face her equipment and resume the broadcast.

            Only, someone else was sitting in the chair. She averted her eyes quickly, not a fan of the discomfort inherent to staring at Erika, and sighed in defeated frustration. “Is there something you need with me?”

            The angel didn’t answer her question, running their hands over the radio equipment and as Anita watched, the equipment began to change, break down, rust in mere moments and the weather, playing softly in the background, skipped and died out.

            “You—that! That’s my equipment!” she babbled, flustered, and rushed over to try and oust Erika from the chair while she could still—but as she tried to wrap her hands around the microphone and pry it from Erika’s grasp, it dissolved into a fine powder and she realized.

            She really finally looked around.

            And the whole station had fallen into disrepair seemingly in moments, the walls flaking paint, the equipment rusting into nothing, everything breakable was shattered and a big, red mark across the table tagged it with “wish u were here” in sloppy letters.

            Anita jerked away from the angel, startled, and the moment her hands stopped touching theirs, everything returned to normal, save for the ruined equipment.

            The walls were fine, the ceiling solid, and she still had a mug sitting there from this morning and—

            “What the hell was that? Erika, what the hell did I just see?” she demanded, more careful this time not to touch the angel in her quest for answers.

            Their communication arrived as cryptically as ever and informed her that she had made a decision, and decisions would have consequences. If they had no consequences, there would be no motivation to do the correct thing.

            “Consequences?!” she spat, “For what, for protecting my city—what kind of a radio host do you even think I am? These are my citizens! They need my protection!”

            Erika continued watching her with an apparently endless number of eyes, but said nothing for a length until they concluded that she had endangered her city further by resisting the appropriate path of destiny.

            “Oh path of destiny ­ _this_ , you angelic fuck,” she spat and finally whipped out her tazer, jamming the contacts against the angel’s back in a quick, furious motion. The attack had no effect on the angel, but Erika stood and spun to face Anita, advancing on her. She backed quickly away, raised her hands up, dropped the tazer.

            “Just a joke, just a—ha ha, really funny right? I didn’t mean to… oh god,” she whimpered as Erika backed her against the wall, too many eyes staring her down, feeling like they were staring holes right through her—

            Anita Mitchell has made a mistake, the angel informed her. Anita Mitchell could not be the protector of Night Vale, for only the true Voice could ever be the protector for Night Vale. Anita Mitchell was not the Voice of Night Vale, Anita Mitchell was a pawn in the process of creating a new dwelling space for the inhabitants of Night Vale. Anita Mitchell was a nobody. Anita Mitchell was a fool.

            She clamped her eyes shut and she could feel the divine warmth radiating off of the angel as they came closer and closer, but she couldn’t press herself any flatter against the wall. “Th-this isn’t right,” she stammered. “You can’t just. Use everyone as p-pawns for one person’s sake, it’s not—it’s not fair.”

            Erika continued to watch her—she could still feel the angel’s eyes on her—and replied: Anita Mitchell does not understand the machinations of higher entities. Anita Mitchell does not understand anything. Anita Mitchell needs to understand that she is no longer the voice of this town.

            “Oh so—so Cecil just gets to hurt people and—and send away the University and—and no consequences he just comes in and gets the radio station and we all just—we’re all just his fucking pawns?” Anita tried to steel her resolve again and sound braver. “We—we had a beautiful town, damn it!”

            Erika was no longer responding, but their warmth was still so close that Anita knew they hadn’t moved; something else was clearly afoot. She waited, gave them a chance to do whatever it was they were going to do before she cautiously opened her eyes again to look up at them.

She made the mistake of making eye contact with a pair of Erika’s eyes, and then found she couldn’t avert her gaze anymore from the figure looming over her. What felt like hours passed—but it was likely only minutes—before Erika reached forward and placed their hands on either side of the radio host’s head, their touch seeming to burn straight through her skin.

Anita Mitchell does not understand why things are the way they must be, they explained. So they would show her.

 

* * *

 

Within moments of stumbling back out of the void, Kevin had already wounded himself on the porcelain side of a gas station bathroom sink. He took a couple of cautious steps, slid when someone bumped him from behind, and jacked his jaw into next week on the way down before he landed with a thunk.

“Shit, you okay?” Roger asked, crouching by his side to make sure he wasn’t bleeding or anything, but he wasn’t. Just dazed as hell.

Kevin waited for the sense to come back to him before he muttered his reply, “Never lose your eyes, kid.” He gingerly pushed himself up into a sitting position and then let Roger help him to his feet again. Kevin had no fucking idea where they were.

Which, honestly, made two of them. It was a cramped and filthy space, just a few narrow stalls and a sink crammed into what probably would have had a better life as a storage closet. Roger helped Kevin over to the sink so he could hold onto it for support and then set to peeking in the stalls, all of which were empty.

“Okay so we were supposed to like, leave by the dog park exit right?” Roger asked, glancing over at Kevin. “Because this doesn’t look like the dog park, like, at all. It looks like, I don’t know. A public toilet.”

Kevin’s face twisted. “Oh tell me I didn’t—”

“You fell on the sink,” Roger reassured. “Anyway I don’t see any of the others here—I mean I know they all left with us, did Cecil like, aim wrong or something?”

That brought a snicker in response. “Now, I would pay to see that but I don’t think so. He’s always been careful about it. If we ended up somewhere else, something else is responsible for it—are you sure we’re not just right by the dog park?”

Roger blinked. “Is… that something that could happen?”

“If the exit was blocked when we came out, sure. Doors can get displaced.”

While Roger was thinking this over, the door of the nearest stall swung open and smacked him in the back, and then Tamika was looking over the room as well.

“This isn’t the dog park?”

“Yeah, we’re discussing that,” Roger remarked. “Kev said stuff gets like, displaced if it’s blocked? So we’re probably nearby.”

“You suppose the others already arrived and went on without us?” Tamika asked.

Roger paused. “I guess that’s possible. Uh. One of us at least should stay here in case someone else shows—you wanna stay or should I?”

She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter much to me.”

A different stall swung open and Dana nearly knocked Kevin off his feet again, but Tamika steadied both of them.

“Or we can just stay here a few more minutes,” she suggested, while Dana glanced around to get her bearings. Of the lot of them, she seemed least concerned so far.

“Are we all that’s shown up so far?” was all she asked.

“That we know of, yes,” Tamika answered. “It’s possible others could have come before but I’m starting to think that’s highly unlikely.”

Kevin just said nothing, rubbing at his jaw a little and working it back and forth to make sure it still moved cleanly. Seemed good enough. The last thing he needed, he figured, was to be unable to speak since he couldn’t exactly write anymore, or at least not effectively if he couldn’t see what he was writing.

(The thought was starting to turn his stomach a bit. He wouldn’t be able to read or write anymore, couldn’t even see where he was going enough to go anywhere on his own—who was really going to have to look after him now?)

Carlos and Megan arrived in a pile; Megan, unfortunately, was on top.

Still reeling from the trip through the void, Carlos groaned on the tiled floor and cracked his eyes open, looking around for the brief moment of bliss before he realized his face was six inches away from a wadded up sanitary pad. He let out a startled yelp and tried to roll away, toppling Megan onto the floor in the process.

“Hey, hey, hey, come on, you’re fine,” Tamika attempted to reassure, “We just got displaced a little but it seems like everyone is coming through alright.”

“Is that why there’s a pad on the floor?” he asked, a little hazy still as he looked around.

Tamika mouthed his words to herself, then looked down and sure enough, there was a pad wadded up on the floor underneath the sink. “You uh, might want to wash your face then.”

Carlos made his way over to the sink to do just that while Tamika and Roger jointly pulled Megan to her feet. Kevin startled at the sudden sound of running water and then looked in his direction, or well, mostly did.

“Is everyone back yet?” he asked, mostly waiting to hear whose voice was going to respond so he didn’t look like a fool asking who was there.

“I don’t see Cecil yet,” Carlos replied, “Everyone else is though.” He rolled his sleeves up to keep them dry as he soaped up his hands and tried to scrub a layer of flesh off his face to make it clean again.

“We’re in a bathroom,” Kevin remarked. “I’ve never opened gateways to the void in a bathroom before.”

Roger’s voice could be heard from a few feet away: “Nah dude that usually only happens after too much spicy food.”

Tamika snorted and then tried to pretend she didn’t find it funny.

Carlos looked up again once scrubbing his face was starting to hurt, and inspected Kevin for a moment. “You’ve got some uh… well I guess you’ve got blood on a few parts of you but maybe you should get it off your face so people don’t see it there because it’s really obvious and uh,” he stopped abruptly.

“Sure, just let me look in the mirror and I’ll get that right cleaned off,” Kevin retorted.

“A ‘can you help me’ would suffice too,” Carlos replied.

“Well if you’re offering.”

So Carlos finished rinsing himself off and then reached over, first putting his hands on Kevin’s shoulders so he’d know that he was there. “Okay, you need to lean down um, I’ll guide you, just follow where my hands are going and I can get you kind of cleaned up.”

Kevin sighed, but followed the guidance of Carlos’s hands on his shoulders, because if he was going to get anything done he was going to have to get used to people guiding him. The feel of water and of Carlos’s hands against his face was a weird one, but he stayed still, only wincing a bit when the soap burned his one remaining eye.

“Oop, sorry,” Carlos muttered, quickly rinsing the soap away.

(At least by now, the holes where Kevin’s other eyes had been were basically caked over and dried, or that could have hurt a lot worse with the careless way Carlos was soaping him up.)

Cecil arrived at a delay and Dana had to steady him when he stumbled out one of the stall doors and into the now incredibly crowded bathroom. He looked around, blinking a little to adjust his eyes to the dim lighting, and then he spotted Carlos—his precious Carlos—….washing Kevin’s face? He scowled and started to go over, but Tamika stopped him first.

“Hey so, this isn’t the dog park. Explanations, Cecil?”

He stopped moving, and sighed. “…Most likely the exit was blocked, Tamika. We’ve all, it seems, arrived safely so that’s probably all that it was.”

            Carlos glanced over, still busy with Kevin, but hearing Cecil’s voice had him smiling. He accidentally shoved a finger in one of Kevin’s eye sockets and he jerked away quickly, face still dripping with water and soap. “Careful, fuck!”

            “Oh, sorry! I was distracted, sorry,” Carlos replied quickly, “Here let me just—you have soap all over you, oh you’re getting your shirt wet too now…”

            Kevin wiped at his face with his hands, brushing off as much water as he could. “It’s fine—fine. Better soap than blood, or whatever.”

            Carlos handed him a wad of paper towels, anyway, so he could dry himself off better, and then Cecil had edged his way over and wrapped an arm around Carlos’s waist, pulling him quickly away from his brother and into a kiss.

            For a moment, Carlos reciprocated with enthusiasm, but then remembered something and pulled away. “Um, Ceec. We’re all still in a ladies’ restroom can we do that when we get home?”

            “And get yourselves a room,” Roger suggested.

            “…of course, we’ll have the best room in the house, my dear Carlos. Because you’ll be in it.” Cecil ran his fingers along Carlos’s jawline and moved in for another kiss, ignoring the earlier request. He ended up kissing Carlos on the nose when he moved.

            “Come on. Out of the bathroom, this place is filthy,” Carlos insisted, worming out of Cecil’s embrace. He grabbed Kevin’s arm to lead him along, and Cecil made sure to grab Carlos’s other hand, which made it rather difficult for the three of them to navigate their way out of the bathroom.

            Fortunately, Tamika held the door for them. Unfortunately, the place looked foreign when they stepped out. The windows weren’t showing familiar scenes of Night Vale, in fact, the climate looked all wrong—there wasn’t a lick of sand in sight.

            Instead, everything was blanketed with snow.

            “Uh, Cecil.” Roger didn’t bother saying anything else. His complaint was obvious.

            “Oh, no, no, no no no!” It was Carlos who was most upset once he caught sight of the snow outside, and he released both Kevin and Cecil and darted for the front door of the gas station, swinging it open to step outside as if this was some strange mirage.

            Dressed for the desert, he was quickly chilled by the frost in the air, and darted back inside—forlorn. “Cecil, where _are_ we?”

            “Great question,” Tamika muttered.

            Kevin finally caught on: “Wait, did he fuck up?” The grin spreading across his face was enough to make Cecil want to slap him, and he probably would have if he hadn’t at that exact moment noticed that the whole lot of them were attracting a bit of attention.

            The woman who’d been filling her fountain drink stood slack-jawed, gaping at them with orange soda overflowing onto her boots as the cashier failed to notice, too busy gawking at the same visual. An inattentive young man wandered up toward the cash register and dropped his bag of licorice the moment he caught what everyone else was staring at.

            Mostly Kevin, smile scarred halfway up his cheeks, gaping holes where his eyes should have been, blood stains on his shirt. But each of them would make their way from person to person in the group, all of them dressed for warm weather; Megan badly sunburned and towering over the others; Carlos splattered with water from the sink and a bit of blood; Cecil with his purple hair and—was that a third eye?—squinting at them, glasses-less and realizing how much he stood out. Dana and Tamika exchanged a look, but it was Megan who spoke next:

            “Hey, can we um. Borrow someone’s phone to call a taxi?”

            Nobody responded initially, but when she held her hand out, the young man frantically fumbled to pull his phone out and handed it shakily over to her, still not looking away from Kevin for even a second.

            “Thanks!” she replied cheerfully, “Now does anyone know what intersection this place is on?”

            “F-forty fifth and main,” the cashier replied quietly.

            Megan stepped aside to call for a taxi while the others stared awkwardly back at the group that was gawking at them. Cecil cleared his throat after a moment.

            “Can we help you?” he asked.

            The cashier quickly shook his head and turned back to the young man, quickly completing the transaction with shaking hands. The woman finally noticed orange soda flooding down the front of the soda machine and stopped dispensing it, and without another word she left the gas station and her soda cup behind.

            Kevin leaned over to whoever took hold of his arm and whispered, “I take it I’m attracting attention?”

            Roger snorted. “Yeah I think we all are but uh. Should get you something to cover up.”

            Tamika had already broken off from the group to scan over the shelves in the little gas station, and she came back and pulled a knit face mask over Kevin’s head which… did make him look a bit more like a burglar, and didn’t cover his eye sockets, but blocked off the other scars and the eye that didn’t belong. “That should be a bit better. We’re getting a taxi so… just be nonchalant. We’ll say your eyes are a surgery thing.”

            Kevin grimaced. “I would fire the surgeon who took my eyes out but fine. Where are we even going to—where are we even now?”

            “I don’t know, someplace snowy,” she replied, continuing to pass knitwear to the others in the group; Carlos silently accepted the scarf that she handed him and stared down at it.

            “…we can get back to Night Vale,” Cecil reassured. “We’ll go right back there—that’s what we’ll make the taxi do and—”

            “Cecil just. Just stop,” he replied with an exasperated laugh. “It’s… fine. I mean okay maybe it’s not fine because maybe everything I own is back there but it’s fine I mean. I can’t go back anyway, not after everything that happened—we couldn’t stay there anyway I mean.”

For once not sure what else to say, Cecil just took his hand and gave it a squeeze. Carlos squeezed silently back and then put his scarf on.

Megan reappeared with a smile on her face. “Alright guys the taxi’s on their way, should be here in like ten minutes. I uh, made sure I got a van so there’d be enough room for everyone.”

Tamika plopped a hat into Megan’s hands and she went about putting it on, then tried to find the phone’s owner to return it, only when she turned to look, he’d left.

In fact, so had the cashier, and the gas station was now entirely unattended.

“So… looks like we can grab some snacks for on the way,” Roger suggested.

“On the way where?” Kevin asked.

Tamika shrugged. “Wherever.” And she pushed a bag of jerky into Kevin’s hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey did anyone see that coming? shh, I'm having fun here let me have my fun.
> 
> as always, thanks for the love everyone! <3


	69. Sights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang takes up bunk in a motel room. Carlos and Kevin have a chat. Anita Mitchell makes a change.

            The motel room they stayed in was a pretty cramped affair, but the only one among them who’d still had her wallet was Tamika and she wasn’t ready to dish out so everyone could have a cozy place to stay—not when she knew she’d have to float them on her cash til they could find another source for it.

            Her bank account was not a rich woman’s treasure hoard by any means.

            So beds were shared, the sofa was slept on—it wasn’t altogether too bad of an affair. She shared one bed with Megan and Roger, Carlos and Cecil took the other. Dana took the couch. Kevin took the floor. They’d figure out their next steps in the morning, but the plan seemed pretty straightforward:

            They would find someplace at least a couple of them could pick up quick jobs, stay wherever was closest and get an address. Carlos would reach out to his friends back home and have them mail his things from his apartment to the new address. The rest of them would work on having replacement credit cards sent their way.

            Megan still had the phone that terrified man had given to her, but she didn’t have the charging cord so she’d turned it off. Conserve the batteries, in case they needed it again. It was sitting on the end table next to the alarm clock that hadn’t been turned on and wouldn’t have probably worked anyway, flashing 12:00 over and over.

            Alarm clock or no, Kevin didn’t sleep through the night—he couldn’t. He tried to get comfortable, rolled over and over on the floor and once planted his face into the leftovers of pizza that they’d ordered the night before.

            With an exasperated grunt, he sat up and tried to feel his way around the room. He’d gotten a pretty good idea of the layout earlier, they’d had some time to kill after all and he didn’t like the idea of being the only one with no clue where the bathroom was.

            So he found his way there and gingerly shut the door before he dared open his eye to look at himself in the mirror. God. Okay that was pretty blinding actually—he closed his eye again just as quickly and looked away. “Fuck.”

            This wasn’t going to be as easy as the last time.

            He rifled through the little sewing kit that he’d snatched from Tamika after she’d gone to sleep. It wasn’t anything impressive, just a few needles, a few colors of thread in a little plastic package that she’d snatched from the gas station. She really wasn’t all that good at sewing, but she’d convinced Carlos to stitch the eye holes shut on Kevin’s face mask. It would stop people from staring, she figured.

            Kevin couldn’t help but wonder just how much of a freak he looked like to the whole lot of them—those he knew, those he didn’t. He cautiously cracked open his eye again and looked at himself for a few more moments before the light got to be too much and he had to look away.

            “You got what you wanted out of them, Kevin.” The familiar voice came back, breaking through the silence. It was him, but it wasn’t him. “They have nothing more to offer, you should leave while you have the opportunity.”

            He scowled. “And what an opportunity it is, blind man up against the world.”

            “The world doesn’t have the power you have, Kevin.”

            Kevin laughed quietly. “I don’t have the power you think I have. Notice something? You’re not mind-controlling anybody anymore.”

            A long silence followed, and Kevin leaned in close to the mirror to get another glance at himself but froze at the sound of footsteps outside the bathroom door.

            A quiet knock, and Carlos’s tired voice: “Kevin, are you alright in there?”

            “I—I’m fine,” he replied, voice too tense and high-pitched. “Sorry if I woke you up.”

            Carlos replied again, “No, it’s fine I couldn’t sleep anyway, can I come in? You don’t sound fine actually, you sound kind of…”

            Carlos trailed off into a yawn.

            He wanted to come up with another excuse, chase Carlos off, really he did. But instead, he quietly crept over to the door again and opened it, slowly so the hinges wouldn’t creak. Carlos entered and shut the door behind him. For privacy, or something.

            Kevin shifted uncomfortably and tried to hide the mending kit behind the towels on the counter, but only managed to knock it onto the floor with a small clatter. He tensed, then felt his way around and sat on the closed toilet lid. “S-so, um.”

            “I’m not real good at this stuff,” Carlos remarked, “And I’m kind of half-asleep so there’s that too but um. You were talking to yourself? I think? Is that okay?”

            A long pause followed. Kevin forced himself to reply, “It’s—fine. I… do that. Sometimes. It’s for stress release, that’s all.”

            “Kevin, I want you to tell me like, for real what’s actually happening,” Carlos muttered. “That’s the Smiling God, right? You were talking to them, is that something that we’ve got to worry about? Is there something we should be doing?”

            “No—no, it’s.” Kevin stopped, and heaved a sigh. “Okay so yeah that’s… they talk to me sometimes but it’s fine. Earlier it didn’t hurt you, right? So it’s fine and I was going to fix it so the light wouldn’t come out anymore and. Yeah.”

He could hear Carlos moving, and the small rattle of the mending kit being picked up off the floor before Carlos replied, “Were you going to um, sew your eye shut, Kevin?”

There were two ways he could have answered; he chose the truth. “Yes…? I’ve done it before, I think it would… help.”

Carlos cringed, turning over the kit in his hands. “That would hurt. I’m really sure that would hurt a lot.”

“It still needs to be done,” Kevin replied and held out his hand for the kit.

(His aim was getting better—he might put his hand out in the wrong direction to start with but then he’d think for a minute about where Carlos’s voice was coming from and correct himself.)

“Why can’t you just wear a headband?” Carlos suggested. “Or a very dark monocle, like maybe get one made like a welder’s helmet, or wear a hat and pull it down really far.”

Kevin frowned. “I would feel better if I can just do this.” He wiggled his fingers at Carlos, palm still outstretched and waiting for him to pass the kit back over.

Carlos looked between the kit and Kevin’s hand, then up at Kevin’s face, then he grimaced and looked away. It wasn’t easy to reply, but he managed one:

“I think I would feel better if you let me do it.”

It was, of course, a lie—Carlos really didn’t like the idea of piercing skin with a needle and thread and sewing someone’s eye shut, and he really, really wasn’t looking to do that with his night, but he also knew that it wasn’t going to be easy for anyone to be sewing their only eye shut, since they couldn’t really see what they were sewing shut.

(And the idea of Kevin maiming himself worse, Carlos decided, was worse than the visceral image of sewing skin.)

His offer was met with some silence on Kevin’s part, before he answered meekly, “If… you want to, I think that would actually help. A lot, actually.”

Carlos nodded numbly and then replied, “Yes, of course, sure.” He couldn’t back out of this now. Gruesome a task as it would surely be.

So he just got to work cleaning his chosen needle in the sink—the thickest one he could find, he thought that might have a better chance at making it through—and Kevin waited on the toilet seat and neither of them said anything until Carlos was right in front of him again.

“Okay, if it. Hurts too much, I want you to let me know, okay? And I can stop or um. At least take a break for a minute or something so it’ll hurt a little less or…something, I don’t know,” Carlos began babbling. “Just I don’t want to make this worse for you than it has to—”

            Kevin reached up and tried to grab his arm, missed, poked his torso, and then moved and actually grabbed his arm for real. “I’ll be fine, Carlos. If you’re the one doing it, I’ll be fine.”

            Carlos swallowed hard and tried to steady his nerves—and his hands. He wasn’t sure he was really the best person for this but well.

            At least he knew how to sew, right?

            So he carefully got to work, the pauses in his flow more to calm his own jittery nerves than Kevin, who sat there calmly like it hardly hurt at all, even with blood running from the fresh suture holes. It felt like forever before the deed was done, and Carlos snipped the tail of the thread and threw the needle in the trash. Hell, nobody wanted to use that one again.

            He sat on the edge of the bath, hands still shaking, and Kevin turned in his direction, betraying a bit of a tremble of his own. “Hey. How do I look?”

            Carlos laughed at the suddenness of the question, as casual as somebody trying on a new dress, but he looked up at Kevin and mulled over an answer. How did he look?

            Like absolute hell. Like he had ages-old scars up his cheeks, stretching his every expression into a sickening smile. Like his eyes were gone, not even lids to cover the holes and it was merciful that the wounds weren’t bleeding anymore. Like he still had blood drying down his face from his third eye stitched delicately shut with black thread.

            Like he was practically ready to pass out but forcing a small smile anyway so Carlos would know he was okay.

            Like he was waiting on Carlos’s every word, just like his brother, like maybe he could have been in Cecil’s place in another world, but he wasn’t.

            He was just waiting and trying to keep his composure for the sake of the scientist who he’d just convinced to sew his eyelids together with a gas station mending kit.

            Carlos steadied his voice and replied, “Well, kind of tired, but it’s pretty late.”

            Kevin nodded and muttered, “You should get back to bed.”

            “Come on, come on. You too then,” Carlos insisted, getting up to go back to bed and pulling Kevin to his feet as well. The shakiness in Kevin’s knees was enough that they had to make their way out into the room together with their arms around each other for balance.

            (Carlos really wasn’t big enough to be dragging people Kevin’s size around, so he was glad that Kevin could mostly do his own walking just fine.)

            The faintest dawn light was starting to creep its way in the cracks in the blinds as they made their way back to bed, and Carlos helped Kevin back to his pile of blankets, and then crawled back into bed with Cecil.

            Cecil stirred a moment, blinking awake. “Mmm…? Carlos?”

            “Sorry, just had to um, use the bathroom,” Carlos replied sheepishly.

            Cecil huffed out a quiet laugh and wrapped his arms around Carlos and dozed back off to sleep.

 

* * *

 

            In the coming weeks, rumors would rise in Night Vale of the curse of the Night Vale Community Radio station, and what it did to interns, and what it did to radio hosts, which was arguably a fate worse than death.

            Anita Mitchell would close the station down not long after the dog park was sealed off for good, and after their last few broadcasts, nobody could blame them.

            It was clear that the stress of radio hosting had simply come to be too much.

            As she had sifted through old newspaper clippings, clearing out her things, she had stumbled upon an old one that she’d forgotten she’d even preserved. From a while ago, too long ago, it seemed like, to really feel real anymore.

            The headline was brief, but informative:

            “New radio station to open in town of Paradise Falls.”

            She smiled at the clipping and folded it into her pocket. _Paradise Falls_. That sounded almost poetic now. Who in their right mind named a desert town paradise? She couldn’t remember her sign-on, from when she’d started the show years ago. But it must have been different than the last show she’d given.

            It seemed people weren’t willing to listen to reason anymore. And she’d tried. She really had tried—as a radio host, that was her job, right?

            Not some revolutionary, not some violent protestor, she shouldn’t be leading people into riots or cleaning up the streets. She was just an information distributor. And if they didn’t want the information, there wasn’t much else she could do about it.

            Things had changed, people had changed. _She_ had changed. Erika had opened her eyes.

            As she’d stared up at the angel, and looked, really looked for the first time, she swore she could almost see some sense of sadness in their many eyes when they’d finished. Because maybe they knew what was going to happen—no, of course they must have. They’re an angel.

            Anita picked the broadcast up again, apologetic, the weather having long since run out but her equipment seemed as good as new and everything worked fine so—

            But nobody wanted to hear what she had to say anymore.

They didn’t care about the history of the town when there were ravenous cockroaches patrolling the subway—a subway which, she insisted, had not been there previously and wasn’t actually a subway at all. They didn’t care how many people got on that subway and never got off, because they believed in where it was going to take them, and they knew all of these places and things that didn’t exist.

The dog park, she knew what the dog park was. Had been. And where it went, and why, and how maybe. Maybe she’d actually saved the town by sealing it off, but she wouldn’t know. She wasn’t going to stick around to find out.

Her last broadcast went out around lunch time, the day the radio station closed.

[When the sky looks its darkest, you have to believe—have to really believe that there’s still a sun out there, somewhere. It may be hiding, but like many things that hide, it won’t stay hidden forever. Like our past love affairs and secret offshore bank accounts, and the truth of all things. It can’t stay hidden forever.

Hello, Night Vale, and good afternoon.

I’ve been receiving troubling reports from the Wattle & Sons Butchery down the road, and would just like to start this broadcast by announcing that you probably should be careful about purchasing your meat from there. At the very least, check to make sure there are no human remains when you receive your package.

I can’t believe I have to keep telling you people this.

With that order of business out of the way. The mailbox.

I’ve been receiving a lot of, ahem, fanmail from you, listeners. Let me just say, I was flattered to see how many letters were waiting for me in my mailbox. At least until I opened them. I suppose I shouldn’t try to be surprised at it. I’m not surprised.

I’ve been hearing everything you’ve been saying. Literally. I can’t stop hearing it. I kind of wish you wouldn’t talk so much at night, it makes it sort of hard to sleep. But thank you for giving me your honest opinion, I suppose.

It brings me no pleasure to admit this, but I think it may be time that I close this little old radio station down. I know, I know, shock and awe, but you can hold your applause until the end, I would appreciate that. I don’t think we belong together anymore, you and I.

Yes, we’ve been through a lot. Survived the depths of despair and formed riots together, been crushed under cows falling from the sky and all manner of other unnatural phenomena that everyone seems to take for granted here. Do you even remember what this town used to be like? This sleepy little town, before it became Night Vale?

I’ve tried to remind you. I guess there is little point in reminding you again. You’ll only chase me out of the station with pitchforks again. And really, after doing that the other night, I don’t feel the need for a repeat session.

So I suppose you win, if winning is what you wanted to do. Congratulations? Okay, you don’t have to hold your applause anymore, if that’s what you want to do.

I don’t care anymore. What you want to do, that is. Night Vale is yours, the station is yours if you want it. Don’t look for me anymore. I’m done with this crazy place, and if you had any sense left in you, all of you would be too.

Until next time—oh, wait. There won’t be a next time.

So good afternoon, Night Vale. And goodbye.]

As she turned off her microphone for the last time, she didn’t bother transitioning the station over to music, not anymore. She looked the booth over and rose to her feet and left. There was nothing else in this room that belonged to her, nothing that she hadn’t already taken out and packed into the two small boxes sitting in the break room.

Her car was waiting out back, trunk and back sets loaded and just waiting for the last of her things and for her. She locked the door to the radio station and slid the keys underneath the mat.

If anyone cared to look, they could have it, and good riddance.

Anita Mitchell had tried.

She’d really tried.

But Night Vale, at the end of the day, was a force of its own.

            She must have been hours outside of town before her radio picked up a signal that was more than just static, barreling down the expressway as the sun went down in the sky ahead of her. Anita hesitated at the sound of a voice crackling through the speakers, and for a time, she let the announcer’s quiet raspy voice stay just outside the realm of audible.

            Of course, she could think of a thousand things that he could have been saying; a thousand disasters; a thousand oddities. When the tone changed, she tuned in and the song grew crisper, and the uncertainty faded way. It was an oldies station, and they were playing the oldies, just the oldies—no weather, no strange announcements.

            Just Sam Cooke belting out that old familiar song.

_A change is gonna come._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end is near, can you feel it? that change in the air?
> 
> thanks as always for reading! <3


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